Past Participle
by Justina Bubbles
Summary: Years into the future, a time capsule is discovered by a teenaged Travis Fenton ... a time capsule containing valuable information that switches his whole world around.
1. Chapter 1

**Hello, all! Long time, no see, eh? Well, I'm still getting reviews for **_**A Temporary Cease Fire**_**, for which I am very grateful. For being my first story, an impressive number of people actually LIKED it. Seriously, I'm very flattered, especially since I looked back at it today and realized that my writing pretty much sucked. I hope that my writing's gotten better since then, anyway. **

**Now onto the story. It's set sometime around 2084/2085 and follows Travis, the great-great grandson of Danny (ducks, trying to dodge thrown objects I know, I know, it's another future-set story. I'm not **_**making**_** you read it, you know). Amity Park has grown considerably, but not to the metropolis portrayed in **_**The Ultimate Enemy**_** – it's still a small city relative to the rest of the world. Ghosts have become a natural part of life for most of the people there, as seen through some of the things mentioned through the story, like the commonplace of ectoplasmic weaponry and the fashions of the day. Hopefully everything else is eventually explained through the story.**

**One last note for anyone unfamiliar with the story – I started writing this before "Phantom Planet" (or, really, the entire last season) premiered anywhere, so there are obviously parts of this story that contradict what is now canon. Please bear with me – I've had fun writing this story, so even though it's possible to change some of it to fit with the actual series, I'd hate to do so. **

**Disclaimer: I don't own Danny Phantom.**

**Past Participle**

**Chapter One**

_past participle: a participle that expresses completed action_

Travis sighed through his teeth. An awkward motion, yes, and he had never even thought it to be something that could happen naturally, but sure enough, he pulled it off.

The reason for the sigh? Well, you'd be sighing, too, if you had been on a float, smiling and waving for the past three hours. You'd also probably be talking in third person, just like how I was on and off during the parade. Not that I'd admit anything like that out loud – someone would think I was possessed by a ghost, and who knows what kind of chaos would then break out.

So why was I, Travis, on a float?

Because. That's why.

Because Amity Park was turning 300 this year.

Because this year also marked the 80th anniversary of the "ghost plague", and when the town legends, Jack and Maddie Fenton, actually became town legends.

Because I'm their great-great grandson.

Yes, they have other grandsons, but none of them live in Amity Park. Of all their posterity, my family was the only one that decided to stay in this ghost-obsessed town. All the other Fentons were smart enough to move away, but my parents were too "fascinated with their heritage" to leave. Obviously I did **not** share their interest.

Back to my story. The city had planned this celebration for a couple years now, and for the theme of the festival, "Ghosts" (that's all there is to it … is that the lamest theme or what?), they asked my family, the only Fentons left in the city, to pose as the original Fentons on the biggest float in Amity park history. It was three hundred feet long and two stories tall and went so slow that even the spectators got bored with cheering for it by the time it finished passing by. On it were huge models of the fundamental gadgets to ghost hunting today – the Thermos, Assult Vehicle, Fisher, and Gabber – as well as models of the most historically notable ghosts – The Fright Knight, Technus, Danny Phantom, The Box Ghost, Youngblood (though historians are skeptical about his existence, since only kids ever claimed to see him), and heading them all, Pariah Dark.

My family was scattered around on the float itself. My mom and dad dressed up in the blindingly ugly, outdated blue and orange Hazmat suits, my older sister of nineteen wearing a long orange wig and dressed in (better, but still old fashioned) black jeans and blue shirt. I, being the only boy, had to pose as Danny. I was lucky – I had black hair, so I didn't have to wear a wig, even though I did have to grow it out for a few months beforehand to look like the younger, fourteen-year old version of Danny. I was sixteen, so it's not like anyone could tell the age difference or even cared, but the longer, messier hair helped. My litter sis, Amberly, was the odd one out, so the city council had her dress up as our great-grandma, Sam, according to how she looked when she was fourteen. Amberly was lucky – she had brown hair that was dark enough to pass off as black from a distance, and she was exactly fourteen years old. She was a bit of an actress, too, so she didn't mind dressing up in the horribly outdated costume and putting on a scowl for the entire show.

I was jealous. Amberly's character wasn't forced to wave or smile or anything, whereas my character was. I HAD to get off before I exploded. I took in my surroundings carefully and noted we were kinda near enough to the ghettos that anybody who was watching the parade had probably been relieved of their wallets by then, and were therefore now paying more attention to their purses than the parade. Good.

I looked toward the front of the float at my parents. They were trying to turn the attention of the crowd back onto them. Good.

I looked at my older sister, Leah. She was trying to slightly adjust her wig so it wasn't so uncomfortable and so none of her so-blone-it's-almost-white hair peeked through, all while still trying to look the part. Good.

I looked at Amberly, who was closest to me. Our eyes met, and she made her way over to me. As soon as she was next to me, I nodded, we pounded fists, and I hopped off the float.

Even though she's a couple years younger than me as well as a _girl_, she's pretty cool and shares the same disinterest in ghosts. We're no where near being real friends, if that's what it sounds like I'm getting at, but we still look out for each other and do have a bit of a friendship thing going on.

Not that I'm EVER going to say that out loud.

I quickly ran off onto a deserted side street, not worried at all about losing the float running on molasses and very happy to be stretching my legs. As soon as I was out of sight from the parade, I slowed down my pace and wandered around to … wherever I felt like moving to.

Was I worried that I was in the ghettos? A little, yeah, but I knew I was safe. Even though great-great grandpa Jack was a klutz, all of his posterity since then was extremely good at sneaking round, almost invisibly. It's a family secret that is guarded carefully because it's gotten us out of tight jams – mostly tardies in school and dull city parades – but there's some amazing stories that are told 'round the dinner table at family reunions of so and so having escaped from a hostage situation or something along the lines of being life-threatening. My grandpa Todd always tells the most outrageous stories of his dad, Danny, and how he could have sworn that my great-grandpa really could turn invisible.

Again, I digress.

I was walking through and realized that I had actually chosen the worst part of the ghettos to run away to. It was the part of town that had originally been the major target of the "ghost epidemic". At the time, the outbreak of ghosts was given negative terms due to the overwhelming numbers they, the ghosts, came in, but it is believed that somewhere along the line the source of the problem in Amity itself was shut down, and now when we get ghosts – about once or twice a week, three or four during football season, though no one knows why – they usually come from the west and we have the equipment to more often then not take care of them easily. Many buildings were broken down and falling apart, but the city didn't want to touch them for two reasons:

1) It is a distinct possibility that many of these buildings are – and I know that this is a silly term, but it is said in a very solemn manner – haunted, and no one wants to disturb what could possibly cause a whole mess of trouble.

2) It is also believed that due to the unstable nature of the early ghost defense weaponry there's an ectoplasmic radiation of a dangerous and unknown level hanging about. Again, it's just believed so, and there's no actual precautions hanging about to protect anyone from this radiation, but this town is so messed up that the number of people who think rationally are in the minority.

Cool. About the radiation and haunted houses, not the fact that I live in an extensive loony bin.

I immediately spied a HUGE house at the corner of one of the streets. It had a lot of ancient junk piled on top and even more yellow 'caution' tape and plywood on the windows.

Cooler.

Okay, so I know it sounds stupid that something clearly dangerous would catch my interest so much, buy hey, I'm a teenage guy – a house marked 'Danger' is basically saying to me, "Hey! I still have time for one more explorer to look around before I collapse! _Come on in!_"

So that's what I did.

Ugh, it smelled rank. My guess was that it had been abandoned even longer than the statement made by the Health Department deemed this area of town to be unfit to live in. As I walked into the living area to look around better, my suspicions were nearly completely confirmed. What I had thought to be a pile of even more junk was actually a couch and an end table. I guessed that this house had been abandoned in a hurry, because I saw some other odds and ends scattered about the floor, and a jacket hanging up in the open coat closet.

On the dusty table was a raised, boxy pile of dust which I guessed (correctly) to be an overturned picture. I looked at the family portrait and stopped. The shirt that the boy was wearing looked awfully familiar … I looked down at what I was wearing and grinned. Coolest. I was in the original Fenton's house.

I stopped again. At that moment, all rationality took a sabbatical.

HOLYCRUD I WAS IN THE FENTONS HOUSE THIS PLACE HAS GOT TO HAVE SO MUCH RADIATION OHCRUD.

Everything I had ever said about not believing in the tales about this area of town I took back as I tore off the costume I was wearing, very grateful that it was baggy enough to hide my form-fitting, modern, standard-Amity Park wear Hazmat suit but also cursing the costume for being cotton – NOT the cloth of choice for the situation I was in. I pulled my gloves and hood on and relaxed. I know I had _some_ protection now, and that I should get out, but my heart already slowed down enough that curiosity took over again, and now that I knew what house I was in I was too curious to leave. Again, I know it was stupid, and again, I make my argument that I'm a guy.

Instead I looked for an old Hazmat suit. Even though they're outdated, they were made to protect people from the dangers they had to deal with that are not longer an issue now – I didn't want to accidentally touch something and have that special, rare type of ectoplasmic goo splat all over me.

My search went downstairs first, since it simply makes sense to store lab equipment in the basement. I couldn't see much, but I did see a big, round hole in the wall and the outlines of a couple of cabinets. Not risking turning on the light switch and being zapped with worn out electric wiring or whatever, I chose the larger of the cabinets, hoping that in their obvious urgency to leave the house the Fentons left a couple of suits behind. I was lucky enough to choose the one with the clothing in it, and I pulled out about six Hazmat suits of just two different sizes and styles until I found one that looked more my size. I shook it so all the dust and what I'm assuming was a sticker label came off and hastily zipped it up. Fortunately, both this one and the one I was originally wearing were both thin enough that movement was easy and temperature was not an issue. The one I put on didn't have a hood, so I made a mental note to not ram my head into any tubs of goo.

Hoping to find a flashlight I headed back upstairs. The living room and kitchen were unsuccessful, so I carefully went upstairs. Luckily all the stairs were stable, so I continued my search without having to worry about falling through the floor.

The closet at the top was completely empty, so I turned to the room right next to it. It was a bedroom with faded blue walls, a bed, a desk, and a poser of a rocket left in it. I assumed that it was either a guest room or Danny's room, and grinned to myself, hoping it was the latter.

I went straight to the desk and rummaged through it. The likelihood of finding a flashlight was so slim that I was nearly shocked when I found one in the bottom drawer. I took it and quickly shut the drawer, eager to get back downstairs.

The force of my closing the drawer was great enough to cause a chain reaction that went like this: the desk itself, being unstable, knocked against the wall. Dust and chipped paint rained down from the wall. This revealed four cracks in the wall. These four cracks formed a square. This square was waaaaay to perfect to have been formed randomly. Again, everything about this house screamed, "I'm waiting for a kid just like you to check me out!"

And that's where my story begins.

**Like it? Hate it? I need to know! The more you critique my writing, the better it'll get, and the faster I'll update! Also, I don't know when I'll be able to update next. I can pretty much guarantee that updates won't be on a regular schedule – two AP classes and general third quarter stress will make sure of that – but I will try and update once a week.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: Je ne possède pas _Danny Phantom_. **

**Past Participle**

**Chapter Two**

_The force of my closing the drawer was great enough to cause a chain reaction that went like this: the desk itself, being unstable, knocked against the wall. Dust and chipped paint rained down from the wall. This revealed four cracks in the wall. These four cracks formed a square. This square was waaaaay to perfect to have been formed randomly._

It took some more pounding on the wall and prying around the cracks, but I finally got the section of wall loose enough to pop out. Behind it, I discovered, was a cubic cubbyhole with a tin box that fit into it perfectly. When I took it out and put it on the desk, I saw a couple lines etched on the top. I brushed off the dust and looked at it closely.

"August 12, 2005

Do not open until----"

The rest was too faded to make out, but that wasn't the reason for my disappointment. No, I was disappointed because I had found a lousy time capsule, which meant that I found something that was _intended _to be found and opened. Not something that was supposed to be hidden forever and be kept secret.

I opened it anyway, expecting to find some newspaper clippings, a few trinkets, pictures, and maybe one of those old music discs or two. You know, all the stereotypical things found in a time capsule.

To my surprise there were only four things in the box. The first was a digital video camera. I couldn't help but chuckle at how big and boxy it was compared to the image recorders I carried around occasionally. I placed that aside to look at later and reached in for the next item. It looked like a CD - I think that's what they were called, anyway - but it was plain and labeled simply in black ink, "Ghost Files". That was a rather boring name for a band, so my next best guess was that it was a computer program. Either way, I made a mental note to take it in to be converted to a data chip if I was ever bored enough and had the time and petty cash. The third item was a yearbook with lots of colored tabs sticking out of the pages. The cover was plain, so I opened it up to the cover page, where it read, "Casper High 2004-2005: Reaching High for 2005". Cute. Not.

I flipped through the pages, stopping briefly at some of the pages with the colored tabs. There was writing on some of the pictures, like a cliché yearbook has, but for the most part I couldn't make any correlation between the pages with the tabs. I closed the book and set it aside. It was old enough that I bet it could sell for a bunch on ebay to a collector freak.

The final object was so small and covered with dust I almost missed it. When I picked it up and wiped the dust off with my sleeve, the corners of my mouth rose slightly with the smallest of smiles. Danny, Sam, and some black kid with glasses and a red hat were posed together against a simple background. My guess was that it was taken the same year as the yearbook was made, so I picked the book back up and looked for the two I know. Both Sam and Danny were in the freshman section, making them fourteen or fifteen. I flipped through the rest of the freshman section in hopes of finding the other kid in the picture. I had to go through a couple times, but I finally found him – Tucker Foley. Foley! The Foley's have been friends of the Fentons for as long as anyone could remember. Interesting … I guess.

I turned back to the video camera. It took me several minutes, but in finally figured out how to turn it on and get to the menu. _Honestly_, people back then had some major issues with complicating things too much. There was only one video on it, and it was about thirty minutes long. I looked out the window to guess how much time had passed by how the light had changed. It was a bad habit, but watches weren't really my thing. I probably should have left – I _really _should have left – but I decided that I was probably already in trouble, so it didn't really matter to me if I was in a little trouble or a lot of trouble that point. I tentatively sat down on the edge of the bed and pressed "play".

**I know that this chapter is very short, and for that I apologize. I was unsure as to whether I should have put it at the end of the last chapter or the beginning of the next chapter, but for the sake of dramatic effect, neither made much sense, so this one is standing alone. To make it up to you, I will get the next chapter up as soon as I possibly can, and I promise that it will be more of a regular length. For those of you who don't have the virtue of patience, I'm also putting up a oneshot I wrote a while back called "We're So Far Away". It's unrelated to this fic, but I hope it's good anyway!**

**Also, I'd like to thank the many, many reviewers who responded so quickly … seriously, I got some reviews almost instantly, and that makes me feel very good. Also, as many of you found out, if you write a constructive review, I will personally write a constructive thank-you back, so please, leave me a comment on what you like, what you hate, heck, even if I leave a glaring grammar mistake, feel free to point it out! I appreciate them and I promise that I WILL write back! I've even appreciated the conversations that were non-fic related (you know who you are)!**


	3. Chapter 3

**Wow … I didn't think that I would get many positive reviews for the last chapter, but I guess I left you at a little cliffie there, huh?**

**Disclaimer: I broke open a fortune cookie today, and you know what it said? It said, "Justina Bubbles will never own Danny Phantom. Evur." Then I sued the fortune cookie company for spelling "ever" wrong, so I didn't feel so bad that they were right about me never owning Danny Phantom.**

**Past Participle**

**Chapter Three**

_I tentatively sat down on the edge of the bed and pressed "play"._

The screen was black for a couple of seconds with some sounds of scuffling in the back, and all the sudden a HUGE face popped up, grinning. Okay, so it wasn't huge, but close enough to the camera that it seemed that way. The face started ranting, "_The Phantom Story_, written and directed by: Tucker Foley. Edited by: Tucker Foley. Sound effects by: Tucker Foley. Filmed by-"

"_Tucker!_" The camera was yanked out of his hands and held up out of his reach. He jumped up and down, trying to retrieve the camera from the teenage girl who stole it from him, when a voice in the background interrupted the childish spat between the two. It was a strange voice, chilling in the way it echoed in the room even though the other two voices didn't, but not cold, nor full of malice. In fact it was … _annoyed_. "Cut it out you two and tell me, _why_ are we doing this again?"

Tucker had managed to get the camera back and replied while refocusing the camera on the girl who took it from him, "For a time capsule. We'll record the TRUE story behind Danny Phantom now, put it away for a hundred years so that it doesn't matter who knows who you are, and then everyone can see the hero that you've been."

I faltered for a minute. Danny Phantom? A hero? Wasn't he one of the ghosts on the float grouped with the bad guys? Wasn't he the one that was in the bedtime stories of how he was constantly terrorizing the Fentons?

The ghostly voice sighed. "Yeah, okay, so a hundred years from now I'll be hailed as a hero. That's nice. But I don't see how that will help my reputation _right now_."

The camera focused, revealing Sam as the female in the video. What did Sam and Tucker have to do with Phantom?

Sam gave the camera a smirk and sweetly replied to Tucker with sarcasm dripping off of every syllable, "Oh, I doubt that it will do anything to help you with your current situation, Danny, but whatever the reason is, I'm sure it has absolutely nothing to do with how Tucker recently discovered how much technology is involved with cinematography, right, Tuck?"

Tucker was silent for a moment as the ethereal voice chuckled in the background, then he simply mumbled, "Just say your lines, Sam."

Her face immediately dropped the smirk and fell into a scowl as she shot daggers with her looks at the camera man. "Aaw, come _on_" Tucker pleaded, and same rolled her eyes, sighed, and began monotonously:

"Danny Phantom: fact or fiction? Well, as most of Amity Park knows, this mysterious ghost is indeed very real. What makes this specter so mysterious, though? Most everyone would agree that it is because of this: no one can agree on whether he is good or bad. On the one hand, he has saved many individuals from certain doom on numerous occasions. He has also saved the entire town from destruction from the Ghost King, Pariah Dark, and he helped out with the rescue mission from the mass parental abduction that took place just months ago.

"However, some may argue that he is still a violent ghost, as displayed by the mayor hostage situation that made him public enemy number one, the Circus Gothica incident where he was witnessed trying to kill an innocent (Sam's eye twitched) young lady as well as was caught with stolen jewels, and to top it all off he has caused hundreds of thousands of dollars in the constant destruction of both public and private property. Nothing he's done, however, is as bad as the torture Tucker is putting me through by making me do this."

"Hey!" Tucker exclaimed, but Sam kept on with her narrative.

"Yes, there is much evidence that goes both for and against his reputation, but has anyone ever really talked to him, and listened to his side of the story? No. In fact, adults are too close minded to talk first, then shoot later. For them it's always vice versa, which is why we, a couple of _teenagers_, have gotten the sense to ask him in a neutral environment how he feels about the current events centered around him."

She walked to her left a bit, and as she did so the specter in question came into view. As she settled to his right he said, "I don't think that my parents' lab is really what we would call a 'neutral environment.'"

I paused the video. My mind was reeling with all the information from these first couple minutes alone. I took in a deep breath, trying to place all my thoughts in some logical order. First was that I had in my hands the only existing recording of the Danny Phantom … speaking! All known recordings of him were of him fighting other ghosts, and since all those were at a distance, all anyone could see of him was a black and white blur. Yes, there were also photos of Phantom that were printed in the newspapers of the time, but those were faded, occasionally very blurry action shots. Yet here he was, standing right in front of the camera. He wasn't fighting, he wasn't holding Sam and Tucker hostage – he was _right there doing absolutely nothing_.

Second was that he looked so young … really about the same age as Sam and Tucker, making him (again, using the yearbook as a point of reference), fourteen. (Speaking of Sam and Tucker, I was confused as to why Danny – my grandpa Danny – wasn't with them, considering this WAS his room I found the video camera in.)

Thirdly … who WERE his parents? I looked closely at the background, but the lighting was bad enough that all I could see was a swirling green light in the back, so that was no help to me, except to tell me that he a) died recently, otherwise I doubt ANY lights would be on and b) therefore still had some sort of connection with his parents – woah. That sounded weird. Too weird, but it made sense. (My sisters may have inherited the intelligence from the Fenton gene pool, but I got the reasoning skills.)

I looked for the play button and the video resumed rolling.

"_Ahem_" Tucker's voice interrupted again.

Phantom's turn to roll his eyes and speak monotonously came.

"Hello. My name is Danny Phantom – NOT Inviso-Bill, for all of you who still think it is. (I snickered at that stupid name, never having heard that before.) I know that I have come across as being somewhat … evil before, but I promise, except for when I'm under mind control, all my intentions are good. I am simply a kid who got ghost powers and who is trying to do the right thing with them – protect the city I love and the people in it. And I'm sorry for all the destruction I've caused, but it's all an accident, really. It's hard to keep from destroying things when someone wants to capture you and put your pelt at the foot of their bed."

Sam continued from there, obviously uncomfortable at the thought of anyone being skinned as well as uncomfortable with the stiff, formal language of the obviously prewritten script. "Listen, Danny has done a lot more than most people know – he's saved the town from a couple giant robots, the internet being taken over, all the town's teens being eternally depressed, a dragon, and even a giant (Sam's eye twitched again) pile of meat. I thing that the only problem people really have with Danny is that they know nothing about him. He's fourteen years old, hates school, wants to be an astronaut when he grows up, eats ice cream, blah blah blah; all the normal stuff you'd expect from an average teen. Obviously, the thing that intimidates people the most is the fact that he's not _exactly_ like normal teens simply because he has ghost powers. We're here today to show you what they are so you know what to expect. Danny, your turn."

"When I first got my powers, there were five things I could do – fly (he lifted off the ground and hovered there about two feet up), go invisible (he disappeared for about three seconds, then reappeared), and go intangible (he became translucent and from off screen Sam threw a book _through _him). I also got super strength, which has always been very useful. Finally, I obtained a ghost sense, which tells me whenever a ghost is around. As time went on, I got more powers that helped me fight against some of the fiercer ghosts, such as the ectoplasmic blasts …"

I watched for twenty minutes as he did demonstrations of all his powers, including the ectoplasmic blasts, a shield and a whip made of the same substance, flying at super speed, and a rather failed attempt at duplicating himself. He also mentioned the Ghostly Wail, but said it was too destructive to use indoors. He also spent some time telling his side of the stories that are often portrayed in the City's history as him being one of the villains, and some other stories that I had never heard of before. The whole time I was absolutely floored – it was clearly NOT computer animation, even though I had previously thought that a video like this could only be made through such a medium, for even now with all the advances made in technology computer animated humans were flawed. It was simply incredible how the two closest friends of the Fentons were so comfortable around such a dangerous (or, I suppose, not quite so dangerous) ghost. Yet here they were, trying to clear up his name … _why_? Why were they treating him like another normal kid, the only difference being his ghost powers? I just didn't get it.

As Danny finished, Sam walked back on screen. "So there you have it; the complete-"

"DANNEH!" A huge, booming voice came rushing down from the upper level, and it was almost immediately followed by a rhythmic stomping that got louder and louder very quickly.

"Crud!" Phantom looked panicky. "My parents aren't supposed to be here! Jazz's school presentation was supposed to be at least an hour!"

And then came the most shocking part of the video.

While he was saying this, while this man, his dad, was coming down the stairs, two electric blue rings formed around his waist and separated, one going up, one heading down. they disappeared, and in Phantom's place stood my black-haired, blue-eyed great-grandfather, Danny Fenton.

I barely registered my great-great grandfather in his bright orange Hazmat suit running up to his son and telling him about a new invention, or Danny making the 'cut' motion to Tucker.

The tape ended, and I had no idea what to do next. Knowing the parade was still far from over, the thought passed my mind that I should go back, but that didn't make sense to me. I would be posing as the same person who was depicted right behind me as a villain, and … well … it kinda made my head hurt.

My eyes flickered to the computer disk, the thought going through my head of trying to call someone up to start converting it to an information chip, but I knew that it was a silly thought, realizing that it was highly doubtful that any businesses were open, and that it was just me trying to avoid the parade anyway. Besides, it seemed hardly relevant to the situation at the moment.

I grabbed the flashlight and ran down the first flight of stairs, turned around at the base and headed toward the kitchen, where the top of the stairs to the basement were. Already running, I flew down the stairs this time, barely touching them.

Unfortunately, on one of the last steps which I did manage to touch, the top gave out on me, and my body assumed a head-first flight path. At a rather high velocity, I might add. I must have been launched halfway across the room before I landed, and then I had to roll to a stop before I completely lost momentum. I got pretty banged up on the way there, and my hood snagged on something and ripped off.

I sat up and rubbed my head, feeling a couple of bumps already forming, and looked around. It was pitch black except for the doorway behind me.

I tried to get up, but faltered a bit, still woozy from the fall. I automatically threw my hand out to steady myself against anything close by.

Within a split second from each other, two things happened.

First was that the thing I put my hand on compressed, or something.

Second was that a bright green light flashed, flooding my entire vision with headache-inducing brightness.

And pain. There was pain, but that seemed to last forever, penetrating every inch of me. It was so excruciatingly painful that it seemed to alter my very DNA, and I was afraid that the people who would find my body (for I was sure that I was going to die) would never be able to identify me.

I heard a loud scream, and wondered what it was, because it was annoying and I wanted to slap the person so that they'd stop. Then I realized that it was me, and I was screaming because of the pain.

That's when I blacked out.

**Well, another chapter, another cliffie. Hope you liked it. Again, if there's anything that you didn't like about this – if it was too confusing, if I have too many simple sentences, too many complex sentences, if there's problems with syntax, please let me know.**

**Also, one thing that I forgot to mention last chapter was concerning the few comments I got mentioning "My Grandfather's Ghost". I tried to imply when I first wrote this that I know that writing a future fic is a risky thing to do, because coming up with such a story with nothing but completely original ideas is very hard. I'm positive that my story will have elements of all sorts of future fics, and I'm not trying to steal any ideas. I actually have nothing but complete respect for writers who can pull off future-set fics well, and Alex Schira is one of the people at the top of my list.**

**Again, I truly appreciate reviews, and I am eager to hear from all of you!**


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer: Me no own _Danny Phantom_. If me own Danny Phantom, me no write this story.**

**Past Participle**

**Chapter Four**

"Look, Johnny, he moved!"

"He did? No, he's still out, that's just your imagination."

"No! He really did! Look, he moved again!"

"_Kitty_ … wait … you're right! Hey, come on, kid, you can pull through, wake up."

I tried opening my eyes, wondering who the heck these people were, and why the female … Kitty … is that even a name? … seemed so whiny. I was able to get my eyes open a crack and saw a few blurry figures, but that was it. I closed my eyes again, the effort of keeping them open being too much for me at that moment. An arm slid its way around my shoulders and brought me up to a sitting position.

"Come on, kid, you can't be in that bad shape. Wake up."

"He's never acted like this before! Even when you beat up on him he still bounced back pretty quickly, Johnny."

"Yeah, I know. I wonder where he's been all this time … it's got to have been at least seventy years since anyone saw him last."

I tried opening my eyes again to look at the people who were kind enough to try to revive me. I very slowly pried my eyelids apart from each other. Even though there was almost no light at all in the room, what little there was hurt my eyes and made my head ache even worse. I tried lifting my arm so that I could rub my eyes a little, try to refocus, but that took so much energy that I almost blacked out again.

Well, at least I was able to see a bit better.

I almost wished I wasn't.

In front of me were four figures that I KNOW had not previously been in the lab before. The one that was propping me up was a guy with long, scraggly hair and a trench coat. He looked like he was in his mid- or late twenties, and he looked really unhealthy, like he had gray skin. Right behind him was a motorcycle – simple looking, with the only decoration being a "13" painted onto the side. Standing off a little was a woman of about the same age as the man, with a red jacket, a scarf, and a short skirt and boots on. She also looked pretty ill – her hair was green and her eyes were red.

But those weren't the figures that made me wished I was still asleep. No; the final figure in the room was a big, black, floating ghost.

All of the sudden I had all the energy I needed to last me for months.

"AAAAAH! GHOST!" I screamed, and launched myself up off the floor to run. I got up … and kept going up … and up … and up …

I wasn't sure for a couple of seconds as to what I should have been panicking about: the fact that my back was hitting the ceiling or the fact that I was in a room with a ghost, unarmed. Realizing that ghosts could fly and that the ghost in the room could very easily get to me in the position where I was, I decided that what I really wanted was to get down so I could run away.

"GET ME DOWN FROM HERE! SOMEONE GET ME DOWN! HEEEEEEEELLLP!"

"Gee, kid, what's your problem?"

"MY PROBLEM? I'M ON THE CEILING AND THERE'S A GHOST IN THE ROOM! THAT'S MY PROBLEM!"

" … so?"

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN, _SO_? WHAT WORLD DO YOU COME FROM? CAN'T YOU SEE THE GHOST! WHY AREN'T YOU GUYS RUNNING! **_SOMEONE GET ME DOWN!_**"

"All right, all right. Obviously there's something wrong with your head. I'm normally not this kind of guy, but I'll help you out."

As he was saying this, he started floating up to the ceiling. Wait a second … he was a ghost, too! That's not what I wanted! I looked at the lady back down on the floor. She saw the panic on my face and started floating up to me as well. They were all ghosts!

"GET AWAY FROM ME, GHOST! DON'T HURT ME! DON'THURTME DON'THURTME DON'THURTME!"

The gray ghost stopped. "Okay, there's obviously something _really_ wrong with your head. Now, I'll help you down and we'll get things sorted out, okay?"

He started approaching me again, and I threw out my arm, trying to punch him and defend myself. He stopped again and sighed. "Shadow, could you take care of this? No, don't hurt him, just make sure that he doesn't harm anyone … including himself. _Especially _himself."

The black ghost, within a split second, zoomed up to the ceiling, and wrapped itself completely around me from my feet up to just above my mouth. I tried screaming again, but it had a fairly firm grip around me. It floated down with me and as soon as my feet touched the ground, he stopped, but kept me wrapped up. The other two ghosts floated down as well, but instead of resting on the floor they hovered about a half a foot above the ground. The man floated toward me a bit so that he could speak softly and I could still hear him.

"Okay, take a deep breath."

I looked at him blankly, still freaking out that I was being held captive by a bunch of ghosts.

"Come on, you're going to black out unless you calm down. Take a deep breath and relax."

I looked at him. He had a sincere look on his face, one of worry and of concern. I closed my eyes, decided to take a chance and trust him for a minute, no other options coming to my mind anyway, and took a deep breath through my nose. I opened my eyes again and felt a little bit calmer. I was still panicked, but at least I didn't feel like screaming.

"Good. Now, remember me? I'm Johnny 13, and this is my girlfriend Kitty. That's shadow. We're ghosts. And in case you've forgotten, you're a ghost as well. Now, you've been away for a long time, and I guess you've kind of lost track of what's going on, but …"

He trailed off as he saw a new expression on my face. He looked at Shadow and nodded slightly. The black mass covering my face slid down to my neck, and I burst out laughing.

"Johnny, he's lost it! Let's just leave him alone before anyone else comes through."

"No … wait …" I gasped between laughs. "I'm sorry … I just realized that I'm a little delusional right now. I came into this house and I watched this video and I fell down these stairs and I hit my head, and that's why I blacked out and now I'm dreaming."

Johnny looked at me, unamused, then slapped me across the face. I stopped laughing and glared at him accusingly, mad at how much my cheek smarted.

Wait a sec … that hurt! I wasn't dreaming!

I dropped my head and groaned. If running away from the parade wasn't going to get me in enough trouble already, having a couple ghosts bring me back home and claiming they found me going nuts in the original, highly dangerous Fenton's house was going to get me grounded for the next century.

I looked back up at Johnny. "Well, okay, I'm not dreaming, but you've got the wrong guy. I'm only sixteen years old, not over seventy or whatever you said before, and I'm not a ghost."

"Yeah, whatever, Danny. Just because it looks like you haven't aged as much as we have doesn't mean you should go into denial. But the snow white hair and the glowing green eyes are still a dead giveaway that you're a ghost."

"Danny? Hair? Eyes? What?" I was confused.

Johnny sighed and rubbed his temples. "Do I have to spell it out for you? Listen, about eighty years ago …"

"No, wait, Johnny! Look!" Kitty interrupted. She floated up close to me and leaned over to peer at my face. She was about four inches away and was hardly blinking as she examined my face – it made me very uncomfortable and I started trying to squirm out of the grasp Shadow had on me. After a few seconds she stood up straight and floated back toward Johnny. She leaned over toward him and mumbled, "I don't think it's him, Johnny. His eyes are different."

Johnny looked back at me and did a double take. "You're right! Okay, kid, who are you and why are you trying to impersonate Phantom?"

I paused, and something clicked. "Phantom? You mean Danny Phantom? Oh. Well, if it helps, I just found out that Danny Phantom was also Danny Fenton, my great-grandpa. My name's Travis, and you probably got us confused because of, I dunno, family resemblance or something. Dunno how you got the hair and they eye color thing, thouAAAAAAH!"

Kitty had held up a compact mirror to my face and I yelled out of surprise. My previously black hair was now white, and my light brown eyes had changed to an electric bluish-purple. Shadow covered my mouth again and I calmed down. Slowly, once he had felt me relax a bit, he freed my mouth and I took a deep breath, asking feebly, "How … wha … how …?"

Johnny shrugged. "You're his great-grandson. You're half ghost. We've got the wrong guy, whatever. Listen, thanks for opening the portal, but we've got to go before traffic 'round here gets too bad. Lots of other ghosts are bound to find out that the gateway is open again pretty quickly. Good luck, and I'll see ya 'round!"

He and Kitty hopped on the motorcycle and I heard her say, "Wow, Johnny, I didn't know you were so good at that shrink stuff."

"Eh, I once saw it on a TV show. Come, Shadow"

Shadow finally unwrapped himself from around me and followed the motorcycle out of the house.

I stood there for a few seconds … maybe a few minutes … possibly an hour … and tried to comprehend everything.

After however long it took for me to comprehend … to accept the fact that I just had a mostly peaceful conversation with a couple of ghosts, who treated me like peers … to come to terms with the fact that I was now apparently a half ghost – but _just_ coming to terms, because even if that was truly the case, there was no way I was going to like it … I carefully looked around me. I was still in the lab, but now everything was slightly lit up with an unnatural green glow. I turned around to look behind me. In place of a huge, gaping hole in the wall there was a swirling green … substance … forming a barrier between the lab and who-knows-what.

Next I slowly looked at my hands and feet. I was still in the Hazmat suit that I found in the cabinet, but something was different about it. I wasn't positive, but the colors may have inverted … I could have sworn the boots and gloves were originally white, but now they were black.

I looked back at the … portal, did Johnny call it? … and realized that that was the light in the background in the video. The video!

I ran upstairs, concentrating on keeping my feet on the ground, and grabbed the video camera and watched the movie again. I watched very carefully at the part when Danny turned from Phantom to Fenton, hoping to find some way to start to fix this problem. It really wasn't much help to me, though. He just … changed back. It didn't even look like he consciously did it.

I dropped the camera on the floor, rubbed my face with my hands slowly, methodically, tired. Looking out the window, it was well past dark. I knew I was in so much trouble by then I was actually wondering if I'd be better off just not going home at all.

I stood up and closed my eyes. It didn't look like Danny had done anything special to change back to human, like say any words or flick his wrist or anything, so I simply concentrated on how I looked like before I got zapped. Suddenly I felt warm – I hadn't even realized that I felt cold before, but the warmth was welcome nonetheless. Opening my eyes, I tentatively looked at my hands. Instead of black gloves I saw the dark red and white of the Hazmat suit I wore underneath my Danny Fenton costume.

I breathed a sigh of relief and pulled out a hair, double checking to make sure I was completely looking normal. Black. Good.

I had no way of telling whether my eyes were back to normal or not, but I figured that if my hair was back to normal, so were my eyes.

I picked up the yearbook, the picture, the computer disk, and camera. Any curiosity I had about this house was now gone. I headed my way home, dead tired.

Pun not intended.

**Hey! Another chapter and the first appearance of a ghost! Now, I'm POSITIVE that there are a couple questions and comments concerning a couple of details I put in here that almost everyone will have. First has to do with how ghosts age; yes, I made Johnny and Kitty a few years older. My personal theory is that ghosts age veeeeeery slowly. Using Desiree as an example - she died hundreds of years ago, but does not look or act hundreds of years old. However, in _What You Want_ in the story the fortune teller tells Danny, Desiree looks like she died very young, even though she looks like an adult and has a deeper, mature voice, meaning that it's possible that she's aged since then. **

**The other question – or rather comment – I was expecting is on the suit Travis is wearing. I am fully aware that I stated that the gloves turned from white to black, contrary to what most people would expect. Danny's costume had black gloves that turned white when he went in the portal, right? Of course. I wrote this the way I did for a reason, which we'll all see … eh, sometime in the future. This as well as other details I put in are in there FOR A REASON. I have the feeling that people have been getting confused with all the little odd details I put in that seem to have no place, but I can guarantee that they'll come together in the future. I am the author, after all.**

**Finally, I'm very sorry for not responding to many of your guys' reviews from last chapter. I had many family issues come up and time was tight for me, so as much as I wanted to thank you all personally, I couldn't find any time to! I promise I'll be better this time around. Anyways, thanks to: Master of Procrastination, Anne Camp aka Obi-quiet, silverstagbeauty, Catmedium, GoingGhost, Miss Selarne, Ohka Breynekai, Ness Lupin, littlekittykat, Samantha-Girl Scout, Risika135, ShiroandFubuki, The Great Susinko, hikarisailorcat, Sasha Jeanne, and all the anonymous reviewers! **


	5. Chapter 5

Disclaimer: I, Justina Bubbles, do not own, will not own, and never have owned Danny Phantom. So there.

**Past Participle**

**Chapter Five**

"Oooh, Traviiiis, you are in sooo much trouble!"

Some wakeup call, eh? Amberly bounced up and down on the edge of my bed, jostling me awake. I kicked her off and sat up, trying to murder her with my glare.

She saw the look on my face while getting up from off the floor and nonchalantly brushed the wrinkles out of her Hazmat suit, being immune to anything I could throw at her after the four years of my teenage life and the two of hers. "Jeeze, I'm just saying, after what happened last night Mom and Dad are freaking out. In fact, they're still waiting for you downstairs to come in. Dunno how you sneaked around them, but I 'spect that because you were able to that'll just make them angrier."

I sighed, trying to remember how I got home last night. I remembered everything up to getting to a main street, but from there I just let my feet take me home, because I was too tired to concentrate. I also vaguely remembered getting to the house, and seeing Mom and Dad, but they didn't act like they saw me at all, so I went straight upstairs and collapsed on my bed.

Amberly stared at me, waiting for a response. I shivered, pulled a blanket around me, and responded with a hasty, "Yeah, it turns out that leaving the stupid parade was a dumb idea, and I mean a _really dumb idea_, or at least I think so, because I could have been dreaming, and I really did mean to get back after only about twenty minutes, but then …"

I trailed off when I saw Amberly shaking her head, an indescribable look on her face … of confusion, frustration, also of fatigue, concern, and finally, strangely, amusement. "Where were you last night, Travis? Did you lock yourself up in a closet or something? I'm not talking about the parade – Mom and Dad hated it as well, and didn't care that you left. They were actually kind of proud that you had the courage to just walk out on the city council snobs like that. But when all of the ghosts started terrorizing the after program/party …"

This time it was my turn to interrupt, shivering again and pulling the blanket even tighter around me. "G-g-g-ghosts? You say a bunch of them attacked? When? How many … there … there didn't happen to be a couple there … one with gray skin and the other with green hair … and a black ghost … was there?" I shivered yet again and pulled up another blanket.

"Well … I dunno … I suppose there could have been, but there were at least fifteen ghosts there, and everything was kind of chaotic. It was a couple hours after dark anyway, so no one could see anything very clearly … wait a sec …_ don't get me off track! _Where. Were. You."

Okay, so maybe I wasn't able to intimidate her, but she could get to me if she really wanted to. I tried answering her question/demand, "I found … there was … GAH! Why is it so cold! Aren't you freezing, Amberly?"

"No … Travis, are you okay? I don't think you're doing too well … Travis, I can see your breath! What happened last night?"

My little sis went from demanding to panicking – I've NEVER seen her panic before, and that was when I realized that something was wrong. "Amb, I'm fine. I'm feeling great, actually, I'm just so damn cold and I don't understand why you aren't! What's going on? What did I miss?"

With the last of my statement I got very frustrated – I mean, I was _really_ cold, and I was not in the mood to have to deal with that. To reiterate, I reached behind me to grab yet another blanket, but when I put my hand down, it didn't stop where it should have hit the bed. Surprised, I lost my balance and fell sideways. Amberly yelped and quickly jumped to my side, helping me up. She and I watched in horror as I slowly pulled my suddenly semi-transparent arm _up and out from inside the mattress_.

She shrieked and I groaned. She covered her mouth and backed slowly away from me, eyes at least twice their normal size. I groaned because I knew for sure that I WASN'T dreaming last night and I really was half ghost … I guess. Well, at least I had come to terms with that _last_ night. How I was going to explain it to sis, though – heh. How DOES one explain what happened last night?

Not that I'd have been able to do it right then anyway. My parents had heard Amberly's shriek and I could hear them stomping up the stairs. I looked at her, and quickly and very sternly said, "Amb, don't freak out. I'll explain everything. Just don't tell them. Please. Amb? Amberly? Everything's fine, I promise. Don't tell them, 'kay?" She slowly nodded her head, not blinking, still staring at me.

My parents opened the door, not having knocking or saying anything to announce their arrival, and they stomped right up to my bed, so I had to look up a loooong ways to see their faces from where I was sitting. They weren't very happy faces, either. In fact, they were very upset faces. "Upset" in this case meaning mad. Very mad.

"Travis Adam Fenton, where did you go last night, young man?" My mother began.

"We understand that you wanted to get off the float, but we were looking for you for hours afterwards!" My dad continued. After that, they pretty much went on and on and their voices got mixed up and all I could do from there was listen a bit and come up with an excuse.

"Everyone was waiting for you to arrive at the after program so that they could take some official pictures …"

"But you never showed up and we had to keep making excuses for you! If this wasn't a citywide thing, we'd never have done that normally…"

"And then the ghosts broke out and we were worried sick, young man!"

"What if one of them had harmed you?"

"We'd have agencies all over our house blaming us for letting you go and get yourself in trouble,"

"During a city function, besides!"

"and then what would we have done?"

"You didn't even have your mini thermos, did you?"

"At least I see you had some sense to wear a Hazmat suit underneath that costume!"

"Everyone's been setting up their ghost shields – why did ours have to break when it did, it's still in the repair shop! – so we had to worry about your sisters as well as you."

"For all we know there could be scores of ghosts in our house as we speak!"

"And then you had the nerve to sneak in during the middle of the night without checking in with us!"

"As soon as we can find a spare ghost shield or we can convince one of our neighbors to enlarge theirs, you are so grounded!"

"Well, what do you have to say, young man?"

I paused, mostly making sure that they were done, but also for a bit of dramatic effect; I shivered (though that was genuine), and I collapsed with my head on the pillow, coughing slightly. "So cold …" I murmured. "Nice warm bed …" I pulled the sheets tightly around me. "Mom … Dad … I'm sorry" I said softly, almost as a whisper.

They seemed to shrink a bit when they saw the condition I portrayed to them as being in. Mom put her hand on my head briefly, then withdrew quickly. "Travis, you're freezing! Did you fall into a lake or something last night?"

As the icing on the cake, I coughed again (this time my breath even managed to show itself a little bit), and barely croaked out, "Last night … ghosts …" And with that, I shut my eyes and stayed very, very still.

"Travis … Travis, honey? Oh, dear. He must have had a tough time last night. Should I call the doctor?" My mom's tone of voice suddenly had changed from furious to worried.

My dad's voice had lost all anger in it, too. "No, I think he'll be all right. He'll probably be down for a few hours is all. Let's just give him his rest … I hope he didn't run into too many ghosts. After all, he was unarmed."

My parents left the room, seeming to have taken no notice of Amberly at all, and gently shut the door. I peeked open my eyes a bit, just to make sure all was clear, then I sat back up again. Whispering, so Mom and Dad couldn't hear, I looked at Amberly and grinned. "Oh, _man_, sis, I mean, I know that you're the one that's good at drama and everything, but that was some performance, huh? Hey, sis, aren't you gonna say anything?"

She was glaring at me now. "Whatever drove you to posses my brother, _ghost_, get out, _now_."

"Huh? Oh. No, don't worry, Amb, I'm not possessed. What in the world drove you to believe THAT?"

"I'm warning you … get out now before I blow you out."

"Woah, woah, woah, Amb, stop, it's me, really."

"No. You're not Travis. My brother is clever, but he's not a liar … especially to his parents. Leave." She pulled out a mini ectoplasmic ray from her pocket. "Leave or I shoot."

I held up my hands in a type of peaceful surrender. "Amb. It's me. Umm … okay, so remember how when you were nine you broke Leah's porcelain rose that she got for her birthday and you blamed it on me? And how I couldn't do anything about it because a few weeks before that I had broken mom's china platter and blamed it on you? Remember how we called it even? Who else would know that but me?"

Tears welled up in her eyes as she lowered the laser. "Trav?" she asked, almost unbelieving it was me. I nodded. "Trav … what's going on? I'm getting scared." She sat down on the edge of the bed and looked at her hands. "I'm sorry I pointed that weapon at you. Everyone's on edge right now … no one's thinking right at all … no one's seen the kind of chaos that broke loose last night before. It's almost like a battle's going on out there, with all the ghost squads all over town. I saw it in the news this morning – they've even called up some volunteers to help 'clean up the aftermath'. They act like it was just some sort of mix-up or mistake last night … everyone's treating it like it'll be over by lunchtime, but it's obvious that the ghosts are still coming. _I_ can tell, anyway – everyone thinks that it's just one huge group of ghosts that showed up, but I've been up all night, too, looking out my window and watching the news. Just when things seem to quiet down, more show up, as if they're coming in from somewhere close. It's easy to be lighthearted now, as if it's just a routine capture, but soon everyone's going to realize that we're not just 'cleaning up the aftermath', and that it's not just a mistake. Unless the source is closed up, we could possibly go into a second Epidemic. I don't want to sound negative, but last night … the ghosts weren't doing what they normally do … you know, plot to take over the city or the world or obtain riches. They were wreaking havoc like they were frat boys, celebrating something big. I know it sounds ridiculous – I mean, who studies the behavior of ghosts? But I just got this vibe that something was off." She looked at me with sad eyes, ending her schpeel.

I sat there, taking it all in. I took a deep breath and started talking. "I think I know what happened. I know why all the ghosts showed up, and … it's my fault." I told her about the Fenton's house, the Hazmat suit, and the time capsule. I showed her the picture, the computer disk, and the yearbook. I wasn't sure whether I wanted to show her the video or not, but knowing it was probably inevitable, I pressed the play button. She watched every moment of it, not saying a word, not making any sounds at all. When it finished, she let go of a long breath, as if she had been holding it the entire time.

"Wow. Just, wow. That's amazing … but I guess that it makes sense." I gave her the weirdest look, unsure as to whether I wanted her to elaborate or not. She did. "Well, it _does_. They gave a short biography of each of the Fentons at the program yesterday before the ghost attack, and Grampa Danny was known for always sticking up for everyone, even though he had a tendency to _disappear randomly_. I'd even bet that his posterity inherited a bunch of his ghost genes – it's why we're all so good at sports, stronger and faster than most of our opponents. I have unnaturally green eyes, even though the only other person to have 'em in our entire family for the past three generations is Uncle Joe – according to what I've been learning in Biology, even if it is a dormant gene, no one in our family should have it in the first place anyway. Leah has impossibly blonde hair, which again, should be impossible for her. The entire Fenton family has been the best at both ghost defense and offense …"

I interrupted her, seeing that the topic was getting a bit out of hand. "Okay, that's going a bit too far. Everyone expects us to be good anyway, simply because we're Fentons, and the fact that our parents tutor us five extra hours a week …"

"Yeah, that helps, but have you seen Mom and Dad in combat? They don't fight like anyone else. It's as if they know what kind of moves the ghosts are going to make. They're also the only ones out of any of the ghost squads that even attempt hand-to-hand combat, and above it all, they have the most effective witty banter. Come on, Trav, you can't deny that I've made a point."

I grinned. "All right, all right, so those are valid points, but we're … most of us, anyway … not part ghost. Also, I seriously doubt witty banter is a trait that is genetically inherited."

"Okay, maybe not, and I'm not saying that we're part ghost, either. What I'm saying is that we've inherited some of these traits. I mean, you've heard the stories around the dinner table of family members, you know …"

"Moving around … invisibly. Ooooh. Yeah, that makes sense, now." Heh. I knew that it was a good secret to keep.

"Ha! I win … wait … what did you mean by 'most of us'? Is Uncle Joe really part ghost?"

I took an even deeper breath than before and started, "After the video … I went downstairs. Okay, so I _ran_ downstairs. I wanted to see what was down there after seeing the video … find out what the green light was, and how much was left there from the move … and just to see where Grampa Danny had been, I guess. I tripped on the way there, and I fell and tumbled around and got banged up pretty badly. When I got up … I leaned on something on the wall, and I was electrocuted, I think. When I came to, I met … a ghost. A few, actually, named Johnny and Kitty and Shadow. They talked with me, said something about not having seen Danny for over seventy years, how I was a half ghost and looked a lot like him, and then they thanked me for opening the portal and then left."

"Wow … well, okay, so it's kinda confusing, and that's all fine and dandy, but just because you look like Grampa Danny doesn't mean that you're half ghost, too."

"They didn't mean Danny Fenton, Amb. They meant Danny _Phantom_."

**Another chapter. Woot.**

**Umm … I really don't have much to say this time around except for thanks to my reviewers, and a HUGE thanks to the ones that pointed out the mistake I made in my ghost theory last chapter. I said that Desiree died young, but technically it was said in What You Want that she died of old age. In my rush to get the chapter up last week, I forgot to mention that I believe that when she died she went _back_ to looking young, because part of my ghost theory is that when people die they go back to the form they were in when a life-changing event happened – in Desiree's case, meeting and losing the love of her life.**

**That's all! Send constructive reviews – I had a rather lovely plethora (talk about oxymoronic!) of them from last week, and that made me happy – and I shall send constructive thanks!**

**Oh, and if anyone at all has any criticism for me, please, speak up! **


	6. Chapter 6

Mmkay, so this is probably gonna be a slow chapter, but it's got a bunch of information in it that's important to future chapters. So bear with me as we go into … Past Participle 

**Chapter 6**

Amberly blinked a couple times, staring at me blankly. I waited patiently for a few moments, remembering how it took me a while the night before to take it all in.

Then she laughed.

"Man, Trav, you really had me going for a while, there. I get it now; you went to that prank store Mom and Dad hate us going to after you saw that video, picked up a holographic arm and stuffed your real one in your suit, and now you're pretending to be sick so you can stay home and hide all your other junk, right? Good one, but I know you too well."

I sighed, shivering once again with my breath showing, and shook my head. "I didn't want to believe it at first either, but after Kitty showed me my reflection …" I trailed off, unsure as to how I should finish that sentence.

"So what, did you have white hair and green eyes?" My little sis picked up for me, still smiling as if she were playing along.

"White hair, yes; green eyes, no. They were more of an electric bluish-pur-"

I was stopped mid-word by my dad's voice shouting to us from downstairs, "Good news! The Lewis' next door agreed to expand their ghost shield for us! STANDBY!"

A green wall of light passed through my room. It wasn't normally a huge deal – I've passed through plenty of ghost shields on a weekly basis – but this time as it passed over me I felt some sort of shock touch me. Nothing too painful; more like a static electricity shock, but on a big enough scale to leave me stinging for a few minutes.

"Ow! What … is the Lewis' shield broke, too?" I said while rubbing my arms.

"Now what?" Amber questioned.

"Didn't you feel that? As the ghost shield passed through?"

"No."

"But it … the ghost shield … oh. Right. I'm a ghost." I flopped down on my bed, face first, and groaned into my pillow, "Ow. That really did hurt. This sucks. I hate my life. I hate my death. I hate my half-life, half-death. This sucks. At least I'm not cold anymore."

There was an awkward moment where neither my sister nor I said anything. Amb finally broke it with an impatient, "Well?"

I sat up, glaring more daggers at her. " 'Well' what?"

"Well … what happened? Why did that hurt you, but not push you out of our house entirely if you really are half ghost? Are you going to show me your ghost form? What kind of powers do you supposedly have? Do you really think you half-died? Why aren't you cold anymore?"

I took a deep breath for the millionth time that morning and ran my hand through my hair. "I think that the ghost shield hut me because I'm half-ghost and somehow it detected that, but it didn't push me out because I'm still human. No, I will NOT show you my ghost form because I don't know how to get to it in the first place, and even if I did I don't know if I'd be able to change back again – for all I know last night could have been a fluke. Besides, I don't WANT to be a ghost. I don't know all the powers I have, yes I think I'm half dead, and I don't know why I'm not cold anymore." The memory of last night's changing back came back, and I recalled how I became warmer when I became human. I brightened up immediately and even stood up and bounced on my bed. "Woohoo! I know why I'm not cold! The ghost shield must have extracted the ghost part out! I'm not dead anymore! I'm cured, I'm-"

My exclamations were interrupted by my leg going through my bed and me crashing down to the floor on my face.

Amber snickered. "Or not" she said, adding insult to injury. I pulled my leg out of the bed and stood up. "All right, I'll believe you for now, even though your story still sounds fishy."

"Fine. I'm half-ghost. That's settled. Heck, I may even be more because of Danny …"

"Only one sixteenth more." Amberly put in quickly.

"Yeah, whatever. I'm part ghost. I've come to terms with that. That doesn't mean that I'm gonna like it or ever do anything … _ghostly_."

I glared at her one final time, not saying anything more, and walked out.

Going down carefully, listening for my parents' voices, I slipped into the kitchen at the base of the stairs and headed toward the refrigerator. All I could hear was the TV on in the living room. After grabbing a bowl of cold cereal I looked through the doorway between the kitchen and the living room. Only Leah was in there, watching the news. She glanced up at me briefly, and then glued her eyes back onto the television. "Mom and Dad said you weren't feeling too well" she mentioned to me.

I shrugged. "I guess I was feeling a little tired, but you know how they overreact." What? What's gotten into me? Now I was lying to my older sister as well! For the record, I blame it on last night's accident.

Leah nodded absentmindedly and added, "They left right after they got the Lewis's to expand their shield – apparently the ghost squads are a mess without them." I nodded this time and finished the rest of my cereal. I headed upstairs to my room (Amberly had finally left) and fell back asleep.

For the first time since I was about six years old, I dreamt. It wasn't one smoothly running dream, but several segments of different dreams flashed through my head – most took place in a place that was green with no ground but several floating doors and islands everywhere. There were all sorts of ghosts– some that looked human, some that didn't; tall, small green, hairy, every size and shape. I also saw flashes of what I supposed to be Amity Park, because it vaguely resembled it, but not the one that I knew. I knew no one I saw in the dreams, except for a brief flash of Johnny and Kitty.

I woke up again I don't know how much later, staring at the ceiling, which was awfully close to my face. "Aw, crud" I muttered under my breath. I turned to my side at looked at my little sis' grinning – nay, smirking – face. "HA! So you CAN fly! I knew that if you were telling the truth you'd be able to … and you said you weren't going to do anything ghostly."

I looked at the floor and concentrated on getting back down. With surprising ease I floated down so my feet were supporting all my weight back on the ground. Quickly glancing at my hands, I inwardly breathed a sigh of relief, seeing my red gloves instead of those darn black ones.

I looked at Amberly, who was still grinning, not saying anything. "Oh, just get out!" I half-shouted, and she slid out the door in the most comical way possible for her.

I was restless for the rest of the day. Mom and Dad had left Leah with instructions to not let anyone leave the house. I watched the news with my sisters for about an hour, but every update was the same – either the ghost squad, headed by my parents, captured another ghost or a new group of ghosts terrorized another area of town.

When I was bored with that, I headed back toward the kitchen. For some reason my appetite was unquenchable, so I kept on eating and eating without taking any breaks for nearly forty five minutes, but after I had completely cleared out the first of our produce drawers Leah made the kitchen off-limits, claiming that it could be weeks before the grocery delivery system would be up and working again, for surely these ghosts would prevent us from all the stores delivering their groceries.

So then I wandered around for a while, more caught up in my thoughts than paying attention to where I was wandering, but still unable to stay still. I took a shower at one point to try and calm my nerves (and also to wash off whatever may have been left on my skin from last night's adventure), but that seemed to make me antsier.

When I finally snapped up out of my stream-of-consciousness, I found myself standing in front of my desk. The video camera I had stuffed under my bed so that it wasn't out in the open, but the other three things I had just plopped down on my desk. I flipped through the yearbook more carefully, looking at the pictures, and paying close attention to the ones with colored tabs on them. I still couldn't make out any correlation between the most of them, but it didn't really matter to me, because it was most likely that they were just personal notes that Danny and his friends made.

I looked at the picture of the trio. I knew that Sam and Danny had died when Leah was very little … only about one and a half, really, so she didn't remember them too well. It was said that they died rather young, considering how modern medicine could keep an average person alive up to 120 if they wanted, and my great grandparents didn't even live to see 100. Tucker, on the other hand … I wasn't sure what had happened to him, though he probably died too, seeing as how they all DID live in a time and place where anything could kill them at any moment. They probably picked up a bunch of that radiation that's rumored to be there, making me surprised that they even lived to see their great-grandchildren.

I pulled out the camera and watched the video again. I was completely honest when I told Amberly that I didn't want to be a ghost and do anything that would make me resemble one, but I still couldn't believe how, even though Danny was in a similar situation (though I doubt that he was stupid enough to allow himself to get shocked by that stupid portal – he probably became half-ghost by hanging around his parents too much without a Hazmat suit), he acted like being so different was nothing to worry about. He almost seemed to take pride in the fact that he had all those ghost powers.

Okay. I confess. As I saw him do all that cool stuff on the video I WAS tempted for a split second to see if I could do them too, but that was soon squashed by reason.

Finally I picked up the computer disk again. Pretty much all disk drives were thrown out twenty years ago when information chips, which hold more information and are practically indestructible, were invented. There was probably a little corner tucked away in an electronics store that still had one and could copy it to a chip for me, but looking outside to the green-tinted ghost shield and some of the ghosts floating beyond it, it was unlikely that anything would be open.

Then again, it DOES take quite a catastrophe for geeks to quit being geeky.

I grabbed my regular-sized thermos, a medium-sized ectoplasmic gun, and the disk and headed downstairs. I stopped at the landing, remembering Leah's instructions. I also remembered the ghost shield, and how it kinda hurt when it passed by.

Then I heard what noise was being made on the ground floor – the news. Still. I _had_ to get out of there.

As a Fenton, I was good at sneaking around, yes, but when among other Fenton's that was a bit more difficult. My conscience kept on trying to bring up the memory of how I sneaked around my parents the night before, but I kept on pushing it back, trying to come up with an alternative solution. No matter what I came up with, however, it was more than likely my sisters would hear me leave.

So I finally let my conscience win, though grudgingly. The fact of the matter was I was probably invisible and/or intangible when I walked into the house thanks to my ghost powers. I DID NOT want to use them, but it looked like I had to. I took a deep breath and held it, concentrating on becoming … well, nothing. I looked straight ahead, unsure as to whether my nerves were up to checking and possibly seeing nothing where my feet should be. Still holding my breath, I tiptoed past my sisters and headed to the front door. They didn't seem to see or hear me, but when I actually reached the door, I realized that that wasn't the hard part. The hard part would be going _through_ the door. I closed my eyes and took a big step forward.

I was actually half-expecting my foot to hit the door because, well, that's what feet normally do when they're swung toward a door, but it didn't, so I stumbled forward. I opened my eyes and took in a silent gasp as I watched where I was stepping … on the front steps. I looked back, surprised, and saw the outside of the front door. Cool – I mean, not cool! No! I didn't like a single moment of it.

Checking my hands to see that they were there (they were, thank goodness), I walked off.

Going through the ghost shield was a pain again, but at least I was expecting it.

When I was finally outside that, I looked around me and stood in shock. It was chaos – every other house on our block that didn't have a ghost shield was already vandalized in some way by some ghost. I heard intermittent bouts of evil laughter, which was more often than not followed by screams of terror. I also heard the occasional shouts of the ghost squads and I even saw an anti-ghost gun being fired off in the distance. I also started shivering. Again. Crud.

The two characteristic sirens in my head went off at the same time: the danger one and the curiosity one.

We all know by know which one is louder for me.

I didn't actually go out looking for trouble, but while traveling to the electronics store I just _happened_ to come across a few ghosts which I just _happened _to suck into the thermos and I may have _accidentally_ fired off the gun at a couple of them. But honestly, the trip to the store was quite uneventful.

Leah was almost right when she said that nothing would be open – I walked into the store but no one seemed to be there. I wandered around the front of the store a couple times and was about to leave, but a middle-aged man rushed up to me before I walked out the door.

"Hi, welcome to Technology Town! Can I help you?"

"Umm … yeah, I have this computer disk that my grandfather kept in storage for a while that needs to be converted to a chip. Can you do that here?"

"Of course! Lemme see the disk!"

I handed it to him and he looked at it thoughtfully.

"Well, this _is_ an older one … probably the oldest I've ever seen. It seems to be in reasonably good shape, though, so I'll see what I can do. Follow me."

I followed him to the back of the store and through a door that led to a … closet. Well, I think it was originally a closet, anyway, because it was so small and cramped, but it could have just seemed that way because there were computers EVERYWHERE. There were drives scattered all along the edge of the floor, keyboards lined up two shelves thick along the walls, and monitors reaching up to the ceiling – there were even a couple right up there. Yet, as if by intuition, the man helping me chose a specific computer to slide the disk into and looked straight at a monitor a few inches above his head and to the right. He quickly figured out how to open the disk and turned to me. "Mind if I take a look at it? Some of the older stuff tends to have what were called 'viruses' on them, and even though they aren't a real problem now, the ugly ones do get a bit annoying."

"NO! I mean … no, it's fine. It hasn't been touched for _years_, and my grandpa made sure that his computer … er, stuff, was clean." Okay, so now I'm lying to a complete stranger. Stupid ghost stuff. But I really didn't want him to see what was on it. I mean, I didn't know what was on it, either, but just to be safe I decided that it'd be best to first look at the information on my own laptop in the safety of my room.

He shrugged. "Okay, that's fine. More business for us if your computer crashes. Since this is an older disk it's going to take a few minutes for the information to be converted to a chip."

I nodded, and the closet fell into an awkward silence. I started rocking back and forth on my heels while the man typed on his keyboard intermittently. It was very creepy how there was no sound in the room even though I knew there should have been sounds coming in from the outside.

"So … where is everyone else?" I said in the most cheerful voice I could muster considering the situation, trying to break the ice.

"My colleagues have abandoned their posts due to their superstitious beliefs in the ghost curse this building has supposedly had. Apparently a specter named Technus has taken over this facility many times in the past, and with the new threat of invasion they have retreated to the asylums of their homes. I, however, do not believe in such nonsense and have clocked in as usual. After all, one never knows when a customer may come."

"Okaaaaay … so why don't you have a ghost shield?" I asked, having noticed the lack of pain when entering the store.

"We can't use one. According to records, Technus knows the mechanics behind what makes the ghost shield work, making all our efforts to block him out futile. One more sec … and … done!" He handed me the disk and the new chip.

"Thank you. How much do I owe you?"

"Nothing. We have a policy that if someone's truly devoted enough to technology to be the first one at our store we don't charge them. Thank you for shopping at Technology Town!"

I nodded thanks to him and very quickly left – he was kinda creepy. Oh, and I'm NOT devoted to technology, just to clarify.

I went straight home, passed through the ghost shield (still hurt), and jumped the fence to take the back door into our house. I slid in and up the stairs to my room – home free. I opened the door …

And Amberly's frowning face greeted me.


	7. Chapter 7

**Disclaimer: I don't own Danny Phantom.**

**Past Participle**

**Chapter Seven**

_I went straight home, passed through the ghost shield (still hurt), and jumped the fence to take the back door into our house. I slid in and up the stairs to my room – home free. I opened the door …_

_And Amberly's frowning face greeted me._

"Heh … hey there, Amb! What's the crisis?" I tried to cover up the nervousness in my voice as I hid the disk and the chip behind my back. I knew I was caught, and she knew I knew I was caught, but I could try, right?

No, not really.

"What's the crisis? HERE'S the crisis!" she exclaimed, taking the Thermos from my belt and pointing to the meter on the side. "One third full! We were left with strict instructions to NOT leave the house! And what do you go and do? You go looking for adventure! You're a big fat liar! You said that you didn't want to have anything to do with ghosts, and you pull this stunt! You could have gotten yourself really hurt, and all for a bit of thrill! What's more … you went ahead and left the house without me!"

"You're not the boss of me, in fact, I have seniority over YOU! And just to let you know … wait, wha …?"

She pouted and sat down on the floor, doing her stubborn kid routine. "I'm very put out. I've been in the house longer than you have, making me just as antsy as you are – if not more so – and I've been following the rules. It's not fair that you break the rules and get away with it. I shouldn't have covered for you when Leah asked where you were. I wanna go out and at least get some fresh air … if I happen to kick a ghost's butt along the way I wouldn't really mind, either."

I sighed and sat down next to her. "Sorry. While I did want to get out, what I really wanted to do was get this done." I handed her the chip and the disk. "I didn't go out _looking_ for trouble, but you said so yourself: there's a lot of ghosts out there. Besides, you can go out any time you want."

She looked at me, confused.

I grinned slyly at her and responded, "Mom and Dad didn't tell _you_ not to leave the house, did they?"

"Well, no, but they told Leah that …"

"That she wasn't allowed to let anyone leave the house. If we leave, we're technically not the ones that would get in trouble – _she_ would be for not following through with what they told her."

Amberly opened her mouth and seemed about to protest, but stopped herself and thought about it. "I hate to say it, but you're right. But … let's look at what you've got here first. If things don't clear up by then … I might have to do something drastic."

I shrugged. "Fair 'nuff." I took the disk and chip from her and sat down at my desk. I slipped the chip into the computer and let it open itself up.

I slipped it and let it open itself up.

_I slipped it in and let it open itself up._

"Umm … Trav, I don't think it's going to open itself up."

"Well then how the heck are we going to access the information?"

Amberly picked up a dusty piece of plastic from behind the computer and handed it to me. "Travis, meet the mouse. People used these before every program was designed to open itself up and respond to the mental stimulation of the user."

I stared at the lump in my hand, waiting for _it_ to move with the brain waves I was trying to send to it. "It's busted, Amb. Great. All that work for nothing."

"Ugh! You're so lazy! You're holding it upside down for one thing, doofus, and for another, you actually have to move your hand to make it work. Did you not learn anything in computer class?"

I looked at her blankly, trying to remember what she was talking about. We had a computer class?

She groaned and pushed me off the chair. "You know, if you weren't so clever, I think your teachers would send to you Special Ed. Look."

She started flicking the rat from side to side with her wrist. I glanced up at the screen and saw that the arrow was moving. Given, it was in very jerky motions, but it was moving nonetheless. I watched as it pointed at the icon labeled "my computer" and opened it up, and then pointing to a ghost-shaped icon labeled "Ghost Files" and opened that up as well. A window popped up with icons filling it entirely, and a glance at the scroll bar revealed it went on for several pages.

Amberly and I read the names of some of the files quietly for a few seconds. They said things such as "Profiles Level One" through "Profiles Level Four", "Amity Park Maps", "National Maps", "Newspaper Articles", "Humans Overshadowed", and several with distinct icons labeled with specific names of ghosts, some whom I recognized and some whom I didn't. There was even one of a ghost with a weird face and a mullet that said in capital letters, "DO NOT OPEN".

_Weeeoooo Weeeoooo_ (if you don't know what siren that is by now, you go reread what I've been trying to tell you! Honestly, can't a guy narrate any more?)

"Amberly, let's see what that one is!"

She looked at me like I was nuts. "It says DO NOT OPEN. Usually when something says that, it means that you should LEAVE IT ALONE. Promise you won't touch it? Good. Let's start with these." The arrow pointed to the folder labeled "Profiles Level One" and opened yet another window. It took us a while to figure out how to work it, but we learned fairly quickly. It was basically a slide presentation with each slide displaying a picture of a ghost, the name of the ghost, its powers, where and when it was seen or fought by Danny, main intentions and motivations, and miscellaneous information. For the most part they were pretty dumb looking, with names to match, like "Klemper", "Lunch Lady" and "Bruce the Moose". The Box Ghost was among them, and his page amused me the most. Under "Powers" there was an actual quote from the Box Ghost that said, "I am master of all things cardboard and square … BEWARE!"; under the where and when section there was simply a "Who cares" written in red; and under miscellaneous information was written, "Won't leave us alone".

After we had gone through the loop, Amberly stood up and handed me the rodent. "Move it with your hand. The cursor coordinates with the movements of the mouse. Click the button on the left twice over an icon if you want to open it up."

Then she walked toward the door. I was confused – "Hey, where are you going?"

She shrugged. "That's interesting, I guess, but I've been watching ghosts on the news all day and night. I already know that they want to destroy things. I've already observed how some of them act. Besides, you're the ghost hunter now, you should be reading that."

Then she left for real, leaving me staring at the hunk o' buttons and rollers in my hand. "Okay, first of all, I've been watching them too, you know!" I tried to catch up with her. "Secondly, this could be real helpful! Third, I told you, I AM NOT A GHOST HUNTER NOW! I ONLY DO WHAT WE LEARNED IN SCHOOL AND FROM OUR PARENTS WHEN I NEED TO! AND FINALLY … I don't know how to use the mouse."

* * *

The following weeks went by in a blur. We were "stuck" in the house for another week and a half or so, though Amberly and I escaped once in a while to "get some fresh air and exercise". When the ghost squads had gotten everything under control and not all of them had to be on call 24/7, we were allowed to go back to school. The ghost shields were up all the time, though, and not just at the schools – even buildings that hadn't previously been targets of ghost attacks set up ghost shields.

Which sucked for me.

The first few days of going through the ghost shields were awful. I tried to cover up my flinching and small "ows", but people still noticed. A couple of members of the Ghost Force caught me once, and I could tell that they got suspicious, but as soon as they saw that I was one of the Fentons, they shrugged it off. Still, I realized that I had to be more careful about when I went through the shields.

There were a few things that got better, though. As I said before, the ghost squads got everything under control, so I realized I didn't feel the need to keep the information chip on hand – after all, if I was never going to see these ghosts, why bother learning about them? Of course, that meant that I could stuff the stupid digital camera under my bed and completely forget about the accident. I mean, I still did have little slip-ups where my hand would go intangible and I'd drop something, or I'd wake up in the morning finding myself floating near the ceiling, and of course there were ghost detection devices that would go berserk every time I got near them, but I was able to recover from them fairly quickly. The point was, I didn't turn into that white-haired freak again, and I was happy for it.

The only thing that I had a hard time puzzling over was the constant barrage of dreams. I was completely puzzled as to why, all of the sudden, I was dreaming again. They were all similar – either flashes of some alternate Amity Park or of that weird green place with all the doors and floating islands. It was bad enough that I considered going to a doctor. I chickened out, though, and instead I told Leah about it – she was into mythology and magic and all this Goth stuff, and claimed to be good at interpreting memories. She said it was possible that I was seeing someone else's memories.

I realized what I was hearing was a bunch of bull and as I left her room I considered registering my entire family into the mental institution.

* * *

"Good morning, class. It's good to see that all of you are here and in one piece. Listen up; I have a little change in curriculum today …" Mr. Torrington started off class. I perked up at this news, and I could see that some of my classmates did as well. Our Biology II teacher was notorious for being one of the most boring teachers in school, choosing to lecture every day instead of offering us the opportunity to do labs once in a while. Any change was welcome.

"I'd like you to meet Mr. Finley, a student teacher from Amity Park University. He's going to teach our class every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, so please, be polite and give him your undivided attention. Mr. Finley, you can come in now."

There was a momentary silence as we students waited for our new teacher to enter the room. The momentary silence turned into a prolonged silence and we started to look at each other, confused. Mr. Torrington went to the door and opened it, looking out into the hallway. He closed it and came back in the classroom, obviously trying to hide his confusion. "Well, I can't imagine where he went … I suppose I'll just have you take notes again today"

We all groaned and started to upload our notebooks when the door creaked open. We peered curiously at the entryway when all of the sudden this bright red, white, and orangish blur jumped in and slid halfway across the front of the classroom on its feet. We all jumped – partially in surprise, but mostly because of the energy that rushed into the classroom with this person.

"Dudes!" he said, energetically and with one of the most unusual accents I had ever heard. "I apologize profusely for my lateness … I met up with this bodacious chick on my journey here and got a little distracted. So, how's it goin'?"

We all sat there, speechless. Who _was_ this wacko? I knew he wasn't a psychotic ghost (I always felt the room get colder when a ghost was near, though why no one else did I was still puzzling over), and last time I checked there wasn't a mental institution anywhere near Amity Park.

Mr. Torrington was the first to recover. He adjusted his glasses and picked up a note on his desk. "Mr. Finley, I presume? The University said that you were, er, 'enthusiastic'."

"WOAH, dude, do NOT address me like that … my name is Brian, but when addressing me, you can call me _dude_. So, what's on the agenda today?"

If we were speechless before, we were now all dumbstruck. '_This_ was our teacher?' I thought. 'Is this a joke? He's clearly nuts! First of all, he wants to be called _dude_ … can that be used as a title? … his vocabulary and grammar is the most unique I have ever heard!' I looked at his more physical traits, and it looked like he was wearing a costume from our theater club. He had on these red baggy pants that stopped just below the knee and a baggy white shirt with short sleeves. He wasn't even wearing real shoes – they were more like pieces of foam that strapped onto his feet. His skin was extremely tan and his blonde hair was long – he had grown it past his ears and down to his lower neck – and there was some pale blonde stubble on his chin.

Mr. Torrington cleared his throat and said, "Ocean ecology, to answer your question, Mr. Finley. I presume you got the schedule and that you have a lesson prepared for today?"

Mr. Finley … umm ... Brian … gave our teacher a blank look. "Lesson? Today? I thought that was going to be _tomorrow _…"

"Does that mean you're unprepared?"

"Uhh … not entirely … I MEAN NO! No, not at all. Uhh … one sec." He dashed right out of the room like that, leaving the class, yet again, in an awkward silence.

I put my face in my hands and shook my head. Scratch what I had said about change. If this guy was going to be as unprepared as he was today EVERY day he was going to teach us, I was ready to accept my "F" right then and there.

After a couple minutes Brian came back into the classroom, wheeling a large, low cart covered with a sheet in front of him. "Okay dudes, I have this little buddy of mine that I was going to wait until tomorrow to unveil, but I guess today is as good as any to introduce to you … Wipeout!" He pulled the sheet off the cart and unveiled a large, shallow pool. It was at least as big as one of our science tables and a foot and a half deep. We all stood up to get a better view of what was inside. At first it looked like it was just a box filled with water and sand, but then one of the girls screamed and pointed to one of the corners.

"Oh my gosh, I just saw something move! Whatisitwhatisitwhatisit?"

Everyone got up from their seats and crowded around the tank as Brian reached in and pulled out a grayish-greenish thing. "This, dudes, is Wipeout. He is an infantile sea turtle – one of the last in existence. The university has charge of him until he's old enough to fend for himself, but I totally got permission for him to be the class pet for the rest of the semester! Not just that, but some of his oceanic buddies will be joining him as we progress with our studies. I am TOTALLY into oceanography, so buckle your seatbelts and get ready for some mind-blowing studies … ch-ya."

We didn't sit down at our desks for the rest of the class period. Instead, we all sat around the tank and watched Wipeout for the rest of the period. A few of us were even bold enough to actually hold him – we'd never seen one before, and some of us had never even heard of them. Brian talked about both the past and current state of the ocean's ecology and about how many species were now endangered both to past human hunting and the constant pollution of the sea. We found out that Wipeout was one of the last two hundred fifty sea turtles left, and what was being done to protect his species. Brian was an animal rights activist, and he was so passionate about the subject that I found out later on that he had influenced a few of my classmates to join the organization he was part of.

So, even though I had had doubts about Brian at first, I left the classroom with a smile on my face. He was weird, and I could tell that I was going to have to get used to it, but he was a good person and he actually made Biology FUN for once.

* * *

I met Amberly after school and we started our walk home. We walked out of the ghost shield but hadn't completely left the grounds yet when all of the sudden things got very still and very cold. Well, for me, anyway – Amberly and everyone else acted like nothing was wrong. Dang.

I took Amberly by the arm and said quickly, "Let's run home. I'll race ya!"

She shrugged my hand off and looked at me like I was a freak. "What the heck is wrong with you? Of course I'm not going to race you! I'd whoop your-"

She was cut off by a huge BANG that shook the ground. I looked around and saw a gigantic metal sphere embedded in the road. I wasn't the only one that saw it – students and teachers alike were starting to move cautiously toward it.

Tori and Rob – two of my classmates in my advanced ghost defense class – ran up to Amberly and me. "Hey you guys, what do you think is going on? Is it a possible ghost attack?"

I looked at Amberly. I knew it was, thanks to my "ghost sense" or whatever, but I didn't want anyone to know that. She answered for the both of us. "Possibly, though why a ghost would attack us with a huge metal ball I have no idea."

We watched from a distance and started getting our thermoses and jack-a-nine-tails and whatever else we had on hand ready as others got closer to the strange device. One student – a freshman, no doubt – actually reached out to touch it. Just as his hand was a couple inches away, all of the sudden the sphere broke cleanly in two and a huge metal man with flaming hair and a jet pack burst out of it and hovered up in the air as he let out long, deep laughter.

I could barely hear him over the screams of the students and teachers as they ran away from him, but nonetheless, he proclaimed, "I am Skulker, the Ghost Zone's greatest hunter, and guess what? Hunting season is open again! Now, where is that whelp?"

The area cleared out fairly quickly as he swooped around and terrorized random groups of stragglers. I looked at the group of friends around me – three more students from the defense class had joined us – and nodded. We all ran up to the ghost and took up a defensive formation. Todd, the captain for our school's ghost defense class, called out, "This is the Ghost Force In Training squadron 129 from Dutchman High! Give up now or prepare to be annihilated!"

Skulker turned to us and laughed, looking at our weapons. "You pathetic children. You _mortals_. I have a hunt to complete and you cannot possibly stand in my way! Now, tell me where the whelp known as Danny Phantom is and I may possibly let you go unharmed."

"We're warning you, ghost, come with us nice and easy or we'll shoot!" Amber, one of the three that had just joined us, shouted. Skulker laughed. "You think that I haven't learned my lesson? Being trapped decades in the ghost zone has allowed me to perfect my high-tech armor to the point where none of your man-made ectoplasmic weapons can harm me at all!" He noticed Toby, one of my best friends, preparing the thermos, and he laughed again. "Ha! I remember that horrid contraption. The only way you'll be able to get me in there is if you can penetrate my armor, (He gave a small chuckle at this) which I highly doubt will happen. So, where is he? I heard a rumor that he came back. He and I have a score to settle." At this last part weapons popped out of his shoulders, forearms, kneecaps, and just about every imaginable place possible to store weapons.

I had been keeping a reasonably cool head up to that point. But when I saw all those weapons and realized that he had probably heard that someone who looks like Danny Phantom was around and that that person was me, panic started trying to take hold. I glanced at my teammates – they had no idea how serious the situation was, but they stood there, ready to put their training into use. I swallowed what little spit I had left and spoke up, hoping that Skulker would leave and the real Ghost Force could take care of him.

"Danny Phantom? Ghost, the last time we saw him was in our History books. If you'd like to destroy the history department, be my guest, but I don't think that that's exactly what you're looking for."

Skulker glared at me and some sort of eyepiece flipped over his head. He read the information that popped up on it and flew up straight to my face. "Hmm … the DNA sequence is only slightly similar … but the ectoplasmic levels are the same … perhaps a little higher, but not by much …" He muttered so quietly I was the only one able to hear. He leaned back and let out one barking laugh. "Works for me! I will have your pelt resting at the foot of my bed by the end of the night!"

Todd stepped between the mechanical specter and me and pointed a gun right between the eyes of the enemy. "That's a direct threat to one or more of members of a Ghost Force Squadron! That constitutes the right for direct action!" He fired the gun (which, I noticed, was set on high), but instead of blowing the ghost back, the kickback knocked him back, which consequently was right into me. As we landed on the ground, Amberly rushed to our side and the others started firing at Skulker. Todd got up right away and joined them, but the force of the fall knocked a bit more out of me. Amberly helped me up and I glared darkly at Todd. "At least something broke _his_ fall," I muttered.

Skulker was still right where he was when Todd had fired at him, and no matter how many times my colleague's guns fired at him or how many Fenton Thermoses were aimed toward him, he just floated there and smirked. Finally, fed up with our useless efforts, he knocked my five friends to the side, knocking them out instantly.

He spent a few more seconds gloating while Amberly quickly whispered in my ear, "Travis, there's no one around. Use your ghost powers! Do something to fight him!"

"No! Why would that make a difference anyway? I'm sure that a ghost squad will come along any second anyway!"

Skulker was slowly floating toward us now, and we started to slowly back up, minds racing.

"Trav, it would make a difference because you're a _natural_ half ghost! Didn't you hear him? He said that no man-made ectoplasm would harm him – why would he specify that? Because natural ectoplasm can! Do something!"

"Amberly, all I really know is that I can float and turn invisible and intangible – and I don't even know how I do those!"

"Well, maybe if you became that ghost-like side to you that you described to me it'll be easier!"

"But …"

"No buts … now go become ghost-like or else I'm going to tell Mom and Dad that you could have saved the city but chose not to because you were chicken!"

By this point we were pressed up back against the fence surrounding the school, and Skulker's grin was filling our vision.

I looked around, hoping for someone to come along and save us. No one was in sight, so I closed my eyes and made my decision.

**Sorry it's been so long since I've updated. School has been horrid – I've been taking AP exams, SATs, ACTs, Finals, and doing all that other fun stuff that Juniors in High School have to do. Not just that, but I'm currently job-hunting for something to do over the summer (which has been fairly unsuccessful so far).**

**I can't blame the lateness entirely on school, though. I have had a GIGANTIC writer's block (which I actually still have … I apologize for the poor quality and choppiness of this chapter, but it was getting bad enough that I decided that the best thing to do was to simply sit down and write what I could) where I realized that the story was moving along a little too slowly and at the rate I was having it go there would be about fifty chapters and the story wouldn't get done 'till mid 2008. I also had to start introducing some of the other characters and the main plot, which will happen over this and the next couple chapters.**

**I'm very sorry for my sudden disappearance and I'm very grateful for those who expressed their concern over my absence, and I am especially sorry for those people whose stories I have promised to keep up on but have not had the time to do so. Again, I hope that this chapter wasn't too awful, and that you'll stick with me for future chapters.**


	8. Chapter 8

**Disclaimer: I don't own Danny Phantom.**

**Past Participle**

**Chapter Eight**

_I looked around, hoping for someone to come along and save us. No one was in sight, so I closed my eyes and made my decision._

Part of me fought it, but the more virtuous part of me won over, and I slowly felt lighter and myself growing colder. I opened my eyes and looked at my hands – sure enough, they were gloved in black. I was now a ghost.

I looked up at Skulker and my mind froze. What was it I was supposed to do? What did Danny say were some of his abilities when he first walked out of that portal? Why was this robot grinning at me?

Oh yeah.

I jumped, concentrating on staying in the air. It was supposed to be easy – flying, I mean – I had woken up in the morning at least five times before floating above my bed. Unfortunately, I quickly realized that _consciously _going up and staying up was completely different than doing it in my sleep. My natural expectation of going down once I go up arose in my consciousness, and I fell immediately.

Skulker smirked. "I see that you're definitely not exactly the whelp I'm looking for, but I was right … you're just as good, if not better. A ghost that doesn't know how to fly! Ha!" He hovered over me and, assuming that I was no more threatening in this form than I was in my other one, actually doubled over in laughter. I looked over at Amberly and nodded for her to go and find help (or at least shelter from what could possibly end up being a rather messy show). She ran off and I focused on my current problem. I may not have known how to fly or even do other ghostly things that I think Amb was expecting me to do, but I did know that there were at least two things I had done somewhat consciously before.

He regained his composure and aimed something big, glowing, and humming at me and I concentrated on going both invisible and intangible as quickly as possible. I heard the explosion as the net left his armor and I felt something rush _through_ me, but there was no real pain or even the slightest discomfort, even though I half-expected something to happen.

I looked at my hands – well, tried to, anyway – and found that they were still invisible. I stood up and looked again up at my foe. He was looking at the ground, dumbfounded. His eyepiece flipped back up over his face and he stared intently at it, but seemed to get more confused. "My sensors aren't picking you up … why can't my sensors detect you?" When he couldn't see me, he got angry. "Where are you, you little nothing! I know you're here!" He shouted to nothing. I waved my hand in front of his face, but it elicited no reaction from him.

"Cool," I let out in a whisper, "I could get used to this." Unfortunately, Skulker heard me talk to myself and aimed everything he had in the direction. I took a quick step to the side as I saw three missiles, two green rays, and a net of ectoplasmic goop make a messy hole in the ground where I had previously been standing. I let out a quiet, obnoxious "ha ha" when he missed, and, more infuriated than ever, he shot off twice as many things as he had before in a new direction. 'Course, by the time he had reacted I had figured out that it was possible for me to actually phase into the ground and come up out of it in an entirely different place. In this case, right behind him.

I theatrically cleared my throat and he whipped around, shouting, "Where are you? Show yourself, coward!" I stepped lightly a ways off to his side and said, "I'm over here." He shot off some more of his missiles and various goops and rays, and when he was done with that I called from his other side, "You missed!"

He let out a cry of rage and started firing off everything he had while turning in a quick circle several times, hoping to get me that way. I stayed comfortably in the ground for a few seconds while he depleted his armory. When I felt the ground quit shaking, I popped up in front of him, still invisible. He was looking around frantically for me. I wondered if he was always this easily frazzled and remarked, "Hmm … I hear that you're beeping. Are you nearly out of weapons?"

He looked at where my voice came from and glared at that spot, breathing heavily but not responding. He didn't fire, either, so I was assuming that he was, in fact, running low on firepower.

I formulated a plan and grinned to myself as I started walking around. "I suppose I haven't been too fair … I could at least give you a visible target." I chose a spot to stand at and concentrated on becoming visible, but keeping my intangibility. I whistled and waved to catch Skulker's attention, and he immediately aimed some sort of laser at me.

Just as he shot off that ray I turned invisible again, let the laser pass right through my side, and strode off casually to another spot. I made myself comfortable and again made myself visible. "Ooh, that was a bit of bad aim. But you have another chance! Now remember, aim for my torso – it's a slightly larger target and harder to miss." Skulker roared and shot a gooey net at me. Pulling the same move as I had with the laser, I walked around, trying to figure out how I should pull off my final move. While I did, I made sure that it would work by saying, "Ooh, another bit of bad luck. Maybe if you use a rocket this time you'll hit me."

My instigating worked – the biggest launcher I had seen him use yet popped out of his right shoulder and he swiveled it around, trying to figure out where I was. Positioning myself carefully, I stuck my head through his torso from behind him and looked up, making my face visible and grinning. "Now honestly, you can't possibly miss me from such a point-blank range. Of course, you couldn't hit the broad side of a barn, so who knows!"

He smirked a maniac's smirk and aimed and locked the rocket at me. An automated female voice started counting down, "Target irreversibly locked … launch in five … four … three …"

I winked and waved at him one last time and stepped out in front of him as a look of realization came across his face. "Oh, gorilla" he cursed and slumped over as the countdown finished and I ran backwards a ways to keep clear from the blast. Still waving goodbye to him, the last two numbers were music to my ears: "two … one … _BOOM!_" The rocket exploded almost as soon as it was launched, hitting Skulker right in the middle. I realized that I had accidentally gone back to being solid, so I shielded my face to keep my head safe from any shrapnel. I was far enough away that I wasn't in a lot of danger, but my left arm and leg got cut by a couple of especially sharp pieces of metal anyway. When all the smoke cleared I walked over to the pile of now scrap metal, picking up a thermos on the way. I kicked a piece of elbow and heard a tiny squeaking sound a few feet to my left. Curious, I went over and picked up what used to be the head. Two tiny, green legs were sticking out of it, kicking wildly. I pulled out this strange creature and held it upside down. It was just a green … _blob_ with a mouth and eyes.

"I am Skulker, the Ghost Zone's greatest hunter! Fear me!" it squeaked. It flailed its little arms about and tried shooting me with little ectoplasmic rays (they kinda tickled, actually). I chuckled and opened the thermos, sucking him in with the blue vortex the machine produced. Right before I sucked him in, though, he left me with one last message. "You think that I'm gone, you're problems are over? Ha! You're a rare item, and no matter who you are, I can guarantee that you're NOT on the good side of many of us! We will get you! We wiiiiiiiiiilllll!"

With that, I capped the thermos, looked around and saw that I was still by myself, though I heard sirens coming from down the street. Looking over at my friends, I started to run over to see if they were okay, but all of the sudden I was very, very tired. I started dragging my feet and everything got all dark and fuzzy …

* * *

"Duuude ... hey, little ghost dude … woah, that was one nasty spill …"

I tried opening my eyes, but everything was really bright. I covered my eyes with my arm and murmured, "Where am I?"

"Trav? Trav, are you okay?" I heard Amberly's voice say.

"Yeah, I'm okay, I only just went and stayed invisible and intangible as a dead being while taunting a high-tech ghost into destroying himself with the extremely destructive ammunition he was intending for me, that's all." (It's amazing how, no matter how injured a person can be, sarcasm stays completely healthy.)

"DUDE! That's AWESOME!"

I froze, realizing that Amberly wasn't the only other person in the room. My eyes shot open and I stared at the ceiling, fearful of turning my head and seeing whom else was in the room.

I did turn my head, eventually. Sure enough, Brian was standing right next to Amberly, closing up a first aid kit. I sat up and looked frantically around for other people, relieved that no one else was there.

"Okay, dude, I'm serious, that was, like, the sweetest bit of strategy I had ever seen. I mean, I was up here making sure that Wipeout would be set for the rest of the evening, and all of the sudden I heard this BOOM! I rushed over to the window to see what was going on, and I saw this killer robot floating there. I mean, he was seriously freaky, man. So I was trying to decide what to do, right? When all of the sudden I saw you do that stellar superhero change thing! At first I was like, 'woah, that's a pretty cool costume change trick!' but then I saw you - I mean, I DIDN'T see you! You had gone invisible! And then the ghost dude was all, 'woah, what's happening, I'm all confused here!' and you were like, 'dude, I'm over here but only _kinda_ visible … now I'm here so you can fire at yourself!' and then you reappeared completely … and then you totally wiped out."

Amberly picked up on Brian's version of the story from there. "I rushed inside the school to get some of the teachers to help out. They had already gone into their stupid teacher's meeting room, though, and you KNOW you can't get in without one of their key cards. I was hoping that one of them had decided not to go to the meeting, but Mr. Finley ("Dudette, call me Brian") here was the only one in any of the classrooms. By that time you had just passed out, and he was rushing out of the room to go help you. You were still ghost, though, and we weren't sure how long you were going to be that way, so we brought you up here so the paramedics wouldn't question who you were and why you had green ectoplasm coming out of your cuts instead of blood. You changed back while we were carrying you back up to the classroom, but we weren't sure if that would mean you would be in the clear."

"Fortunately, I'm a certified life guard and have to take regular first aid classes, so we broke out the first aid kit and was able to take care of those cuts of yours. Don't know what to do about those bummer blisters, though." Brian shrugged and put a sympathetic face on, pointing to my arms. I looked at my arms where Skulker had fired the miniscule ectoplasmic rays at me and saw that little, slightly greenish blisters had popped up on my skin.

"I went back down to the front of the school and listened around to see if anyone else had seen you, but everyone that was talking to any policeman or member of the Ghost Force only mentioned Skulker." Amberly said, trying to comfort me.

Brian caught on to what she was doing and followed suit. "And don't worry, dude, your secret is TOTALLY safe with me"

Still, I groaned and buried my face in my hands.

"Something wrong, Travis?" Amberly patted my back and tried to look past my hands and at my face.

I started shaking with anger. With a slightly raised voice, I looked up and rolled my eyes. "Gee, ya think?"

Obviously, Amberly wasn't expecting her sympathies to be thanked with shouting. "Okay, you're stressed, just take a sec to calm down." I don't know about you, but when I'm angry, people telling me what to do only makes me more so.

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN, CALM DOWN!" I yelled, ranting and speeding up as I listed off my woes. "I'm half dead, apparently half the ghosts that I accidentally set free are trying to hunt me down, you're trying to get me to play the part of a hero, and my teacher knows that I'm a freak! Who's going to find out next, Leah or Mom and Dad or, heck, Toby?"

"What would I find out?"

"THAT I'M HALF GHOST!"

I glared at Amberly, but she quickly lifted an arm and pointed to the doorway.

Crud.

For the second time that day I slowly turned my head and discovered that I had accidentally slipped up. Toby was standing there; confused at the intensity and nature of the answer I had given him for a seemingly harmless question. "I'll … umm … this was a bad part of a conversation to come in on, wasn't it? I can come back later." He started to walk away, but I sighed, realizing that my best friend was probably going to find out anyway.

"No, no, come on back. There's no keeping it from you now …" I called, jumping down from the desk.

He came back and tentatively walked back into the classroom. "Are you sure? I mean, I was just trying to find you guys … I guess I got knocked out by that ghost, and when I started to come to I saw Mr. Finley ("For the last time, it's Brian! Really!") and Amberly carry someone off. Was that you? And, umm … are you really half ghost? I mean, like I said, I probably just came in on the wrong part of the conversation, but … well … I dunno, man."

I rubbed my temples. This was going to be a looong afternoon.

It took about an hour for me to explain everything, because both Brian and Toby had TONS of questions for me after I told them about the accident and everything else. Not just that, but there were still some things that Amberly wanted cleared up, and she's so detailed-driven that even as we were finally walking home she was asking stupid questions like, "What's it like to be invisible?" (umm … like I'm not visible) and, "What does it look like when you're underground?" (Like dirt. Lots and lots of dirt.)

Mom and Dad fussed over our well being for a good while, hearing about the attack on the school on the news. We assured them that we were fine and no, we wouldn't have to stay home that weekend to recover. I quickly rushed up to my room before they would notice my bandages and blisters and asked about those as well.

I spent the rest of the afternoon and evening on the computer, trying to remember how to work the information chip with the mouse again. Once I got the hang of it (I had a feeling that I'd actually have to start using it on a regular basis), I looked up Skulker. He had one of those files that had its own icon of him and everything. I read up on his fighting methods, his threats (from what I could tell, he's always wanted someone's or another's pelt at the foot of his bed – I couldn't tell if I was supposed to be comforted or not by the fact I wasn't alone in that threat), a bunch of his gadgets, and some of the accounts of Danny's encounters with him. Amusingly, for the longest time his schedule revolved around a Purple Back Gorilla that had destroyed him for the first time around. Apparently the species was near extinction at the time, but Danny's discovery of a female one and Sam's efforts to keep them alive caused them to bounce back, and there were now plenty living in the wild. I laughed out loud at this and wondered if I could have used that as some sort of blackmail or threat back at Skulker.

At that point – the point where I could laugh at an enemy that I had been terrified of only hours earlier – I came to fully embrace the situation I was in and realize that it probably wasn't as serious as I had made it out to be in my mind.

Either that, or I had finished going completely bonkers.

I finished reading the file on Skulker. All that was left were other accounts of the encounters. For the most part they were the same – he wanted to finally capture Danny and put him on display or do something cruel and/or gruesome with him – but there were some variations once in a while ones as well. A couple things really struck me, though; they actually weren't actually full accounts, but more incidents mentioned in passing. The first one was mention of how he sometimes worked for a man named Vlad Masters. The name struck a bell for some reason – I knew it was a name I should know, but one of those that I didn't pay attention to in History class or something like that. The second mentioned how Skulker once combined with Technus – _in an alternate dimension_. There was a link to another file on those words, so I clicked it and it took me to another section of the information chip. This one was HUGE. It had tons of files of its own as well, and every one that I clicked on had information that went on for pages – especially the 'speculation' file. I skimmed through all of these and then took out the chip.

'Ugh. No. No more of any alternate dimensions or ghost zones or anything else tonight. I'm still trying to figure out what's going on in THIS dimension.' I thought. I yawned, realized that it was fairly late, and went to bed.

I went through the regular series of dreams that night, and just like I always had, my subconscious tried to fight them. It stopped struggling, though, when I saw a flash of Skulker. For the first time ever, it was actually interested in these dreams – _I_ was interested in my dreams. They were all hazy, like dreams usually are, and they were still obviously segments of _something_, but they were longer, and they all had to do with Skulker. It was like I was actually sitting there watching him taunt someone, attack someone, and be defeated. On several occasions.

I woke up in the middle of the night after all these segments. I still wasn't sure why I was having all these dreams, but I started to get the feeling that they were for a reason. I fell back asleep and spent the rest of my night in a peaceful, dreamless rest.

The next morning, Saturday, I told my parents that some of the guys and I were going to go hang out for most of the day to work on ghost defense. They were pleasantly surprised at that – I usually hated anything that involved fighting ghosts – and let me go, asking me to simply check in during lunch.

I grabbed a thermos and jumped on my hoverboard. I sped off in the direction of one of my friends' houses, but once I got a couple blocks away from my house I turned around and headed toward the quarantined part of town – back to where it all began. I almost hated to, but I knew for sure that there was one place there where no one would bother me.

Looking around, I snuck into the old Fenton house. It was quiet and was just how I left it. Odd, I thought, considering how many ghosts had come through. I guess they took one look at it and thought that there were way more interesting things to do elsewhere.

I stood corrected once I got down into the basement. It had looked like a college frat party had taken place there – ectoplasmic goop was everywhere; scorch marks forming different names, symbols, and initials covered the ceiling, walls, and, in some cases, the floor; and everything that had been left in the basement had been overturned. The cabinets were on their sides and open, most of their contents spilled out, and I noticed a few other things in there that I hadn't before – a couple of tables that looked like they used to be lined up against the same wall as the door (but had been overturned and what little scientific equipment that had been on them shattered) and, interestingly, a row of machines shoved up against one of the walls next to the portal. Curiously, none of these machines had been damaged at all – in fact, some scorch marks had been put up on the wall above it spelling out the words, "Do NOt TouCh!"

Reflexes kicked in and I automatically went over to the machines. There were lots of panels with lots of buttons – a lot of them red. Tee hee. I very decisively pushed one of the red ones, turning around in surprise when I heard something very clearly charging. There were huge guns suspended from or sticking out of every corner of the room, all aimed at the swirling green portal. Oops. I pushed the button again and they all retracted back into the walls.

I pushed another random button – a blue one, that time – and nothing seemed to happen for a second. I looked all around the room for something different, but there was nothing until I got back to the panels, when all of the sudden a tray rose up out of the ground next to the panels, while an automated voice said, "Enjoy your lunch, Mr. Fenton". On it was … a sandwich. A roast beef sandwich, to be exact. Perfectly preserved. Gross. I pushed the button again and it retracted back into the ground.

I looked at all the buttons and decided to save some of them for later, wanting to concentrate more on what I was actually there for.

I pushed some of the junk away out of the center of the room and stood there for a few seconds, taking a few deep breaths. "Okay, Travis," I said to myself, "there's no denying at this point that these ghost powers are useful. The problem now is, what's gonna happen if you're gonna have to use more than two and you don't know how to use them? You're gonna be screwed, that's what. Now. Concentrate."

I stared at the green portal I was facing and imagined myself becoming a ghost again. It was surprisingly easier than the last time I did it, and I actually saw two very light blue rings form around my waist and go in opposite directions, transforming my outfit as they went. They disappeared and I was left with that familiar feeling of being slightly cold and light.

"Okay, good. Now, about this flying business …"

I spent the next three hours focusing on getting off the ground, controlling the height I was hovering at, and eventually flying around. I was still shaky while I was flying around, and I didn't go too fast, but the point was I was able to get up and down and around in the air by will.

I tried remembering what else Danny said in the video he could do when he first got his powers. I vaguely remembered him saying something that I thought was an extremely stereotypical superhero power … I just couldn't remember what it was. Dang. I should have brought the video with me.

I up righted one of the tables and leaned against it. _What was it …_

I glanced around the room again, not expecting to see anything new, but something did catch my eye. I walked over to one of the overturned cabinets, lifted it up off the piece of what was apparently spandex that had caught my eye, and set it right side up. I was just about to turn my attention completely to the thing I had in my hand when I did a double take at the cabinet. It was fairly large and made of metal. But how come it felt so light?

I grinned as I realized that the power I was forgetting was super strength and all of the sudden felt a lot cooler.

Anyway. Going back to the piece of spandex I was holding. It had caught my eye because it was white, while all of the old HAZMAT suits that had fallen out of the cabinet were blue or orange. It was oddly shaped and a little larger than my hand. I remembered that something had fallen off of the suit I put on when I first came here, and wondered if this was it. It took a bit of me turning it about when I realized that it was a logo of some sort: a capital "D" with part of the bottom missing, making it look like there was a "P" in the middle. I can't believe how long it took me, but I finally figured out that it was Danny's –

My thoughts were cut short by the air growing cold and still, and my breath deciding to show itself. I looked toward the portal and saw three ghost vultures pop out of it, bickering amongst each other.

"I'm getting too old for this!"

"You were always too old for this!"

"Look who's talking!"

"Why are we here again?"

I hovered up to them (man, it was good to be able to say that), and waved my hand in front of them. "Hi. Umm … can I help you?"

One of them got reeeeeally close up to my face and gave me an evil eye. "It depends. We're looking for someone."

I was waiting for him to go on and give me more specifics, but he just left it at that. I sighed and rolled my eyes. "Well, according to Skulker, lots of ghosts are looking for me, so chances are-"

"That's good enough for me! This is for you!"

He shoved a note into my face. I took it and was about to ask him to elaborate, but he was already going back to bickering with the other two, and they all flew off out through the roof before I could say another word.

Hoping that the Ghost Force could take care of a bunch of old birds (which was highly likely), I read the note written on some sort of old brown paper.

_"Our dear Halfa,_

_There are some interesting rumors going about the ghost zone of the return of the half ghost, half human child, Danny Phantom. Today we got confirmed reports from that pathetic glob of a ghost named 'Skulker' that there is, indeed, someone running around that has many similarities to our young Fenton._

_We are not dumb. We know that you aren't Danny Phantom – he was a lucky one. You're probably a grandson, no? Well, no matter. We'd like to thank you for opening the portal to the Ghost Zone once more and allowing a way for us to take our rightful place as rulers of both worlds. _

_We do realize, however, that you are fighting for 'good'. Noble as your efforts may be, there is no way you can stop both of us with our combined efforts. We warn you now, stay out of our way. There will be no stopping us when the time is right. _

_We'll keep in touch"_

I stared at the letter, rereading it a couple times. There was no signature, no post script of any kind. Probably just some weirdoes trying to freak me out – I'm sure all ghosts felt omnipotent in some way or another.

I changed back to human (which was easy, now that I was more confident I could control my powers) and stuffed both the letter and the symbol in my pocket, deciding to head back early and look at that video again.

**Yesss! Another chapter done and the main plot introduced! It's about time, right? Right. **

**Thanks to everyone who sent me so many AWESOME reviews – I can't believe how many people actually like this! Shout outs go to: Siren of Time, Anne Camp aka Obi-Quiet, Master of Procrastination, littlekittykat, Ohka Breynekai, zombie-rodeo-frog, silverstagbeauty, Lightning Streak, Jenna Dax, Lils, SolaCatella, Jenny210, Samantha-Girl Scout, and Risika135.**

**And to Jenny210 – YES! I would love to see any sort of art depicting anything from this story – I'm flattered that you want to do some fanart for my story! **

**And remember, I love reviews! The more reviews I get, the more motivated I am to update sooner and with longer chapters! **


	9. Chapter 9

**Disclaimer: See past chapters. It still hasn't changed. **

**Past Participle**

**Chapter Nine**

"I miss Saturdays," I thought as I filed off the bus with a crowd of other students from school. Ever since the fight with Skulker, I had taken it upon myself to go out and catch ghosts myself. The Ghost Force was still doing an awesome job of keeping the ghost levels down, but since the portal was open they were always on call and often were overwhelmed. Like I said before, there used to only be one or two ghost sightings a week, and they were never a big deal – we only had one squadron on call at a time, while the other three squadrons were working at a second job (usually ghost defense research). Now all four of our city's squadrons were on call, and they were sometimes coming up against ghosts that they simply couldn't capture.

That's where I came in. Amberly was right – there was something about a ghost fighting another ghost that was simply more effective than man-made machines fighting ghosts. After the Skulker incident, I started spending my time after school doing one of two things: I would either take in all the information I could from the information chip with all the ghost files on 'em (and there were a TON of those) and watch the video over and over again, or I would go back to the old Fenton house and work on my ghost powers. I became a master at becoming invisible and intangible (though sometimes, if I wasn't paying attention, my foot would disappear while I was climbing up the stairs and I'd fall on my face, or my fork would fall through my hand at lunch, or other various accidents like that); I could fly fairly easily and was constantly improving at that, increasing the speed I could go at each time I practiced; I could lift a few hundred pounds; and I even started to be able to shoot ectoplasmic rays from my hand.

At first once I got good control of my powers and felt more comfortable with fighting ghosts with my ghost half I would only do so if my ghost sense went off (after watching the video a couple times I figured that the area must have gotten cold and still for Danny as well, and that's what he meant when he mentioned "ghost sense") and I could find a hiding place to change. Soon, however, we'd be getting alerts over the intercom at school or on the local news telling citizens to be sure their ghost shields were up because of an especially tough ghost that the Ghost Force couldn't seem to take care of being on the loose. I would carefully sneak out of the house or ask for a bathroom pass at school and capture the ghost myself, then sneak back in. Pretty soon after that I was going out on patrol for a couple hours every night, sneaking out of the house around 10 pm and getting back around midnight (or three am, depending on how many ghosts I ran into). I got caught a couple of times sneaking back into house or class while on a ghost alert, but more often than not I was able to get away with ghost fighting. On the plus side, no one ever seemed to see my ghost side, so I was able to avoid having a reputation in town.

But I was doing it nonetheless. All of my spare time had gone down the drain; when I wasn't doing something for school or with my parents (they had added an extra hour onto their children's personal training after the outbreak of ghosts), I was ghost hunting. I really, really, really missed weekends.

"I'm taking care of rooms 723 and 725. How about you?" Amberly read aloud as she looked at the list posted outside the door of the rest home. I took a turn looking at the list and found my name.

"Rooms 724 and 725. I'm probably right across the hall from you."

Since the night I accidentally opened the ghost portal and the ghosts nearly completely destroyed the town, reconstruction of the city's buildings had been constantly going and was nearly completed. Unfortunately, the rest homes were neglected, left in a political rut – something about how the city didn't have to rebuild them because all the senior citizens living in them were supposed to be taken care of by the government, but the government wasn't responsible for funding the rebuilding of the homes because it was Amity Park's responsibility to provide ghost defenses for such facilities. I dunno – it makes me confused, too, but since I don't care for politics, I didn't think about it.

The point was, no one had been taking care of our city's retirees. Brian, being an active member of the community, volunteered some of our High School's upper-level classes to help clean up – including the ghost defense class. In general, the damage wasn't too dramatic. Only the bingo hall and the kitchen required professional construction, but the rest of the building we were at was only in a general disarray. Doors needed re-hinging, furniture needed up righting, and floors needed vacuuming. Brian figured that if we were all assigned two rooms each we could get the job done in half a day.

As I wandered the hall trying to find my rooms (Amberly WASN'T across the hall from me, thanks to a screwy numbering system), my ghost sense went off. 'Aw, crud', I thought and glanced around. Everyone had already found their assigned rooms, so I went ghost and became invisible, floating around and looking for who or whatever had the nerve to make a mess bigger than what we already had to clean up.

I finally figured to stop in front of room 724. Great, not only was this ghost making the mess bigger, it was making MY mess bigger.

I phased in, invisible. I saw a completely black and white ghost talking to a man wearing a naggingly familiar yellow sweater and red … _thing_ on his head. The ghost kinda reminded me of the man who helped me at the electronics store, actually – middle-aged and nerdy.

"What do you want, Poindexter?" the man asked rather aggressively, even though he was in a wheelchair.

"I couldn't find the halfa anywhere, and I figured I could force it out of you. He and I have a score to settle." The ghost … erm, _Poindexter_, replied in a high-pitched, nasally voice.

The man chuckled. "Let it go, dude. That was ages ago. Besides, I have no idea where he is."

I became visible at this point, getting nervous at how close to violence Poindexter seemed to be getting. "Looking for me?" I asked as intimidating as I could, hovering a couple of feet off the ground, chest out and arms crossed.

Poindexter did a double take. "You! … no, not you. You're that new halfa. I'm looking for the old one. Where is he? He and I-" I cut him off by sucking him into the thermos and finished for him. "Have a score to settle, yeah, whatever. If I had a dollar for every time I heard that …"

"DANNY!" The old man shouted gleefully.

I rolled my eyes and faced him; assuming that that old man didn't hear Poindexter the first time he cleared that up. "I'm not …" I trailed off as something clicked when I looked at the old man more closely. "…Tucker?"

"Well what kind of question is that? Of course you're not me, I'M me! Long time no see, man! I'm glad you dropped by, that darn family of mine never comes and visits me. Sometimes I think they don't know I exist! So, I see you're still ghost hunting! I knew you'd never stay away from it. Man, I almost believed you when you made that promise …"

"Wait, what promise?" This man was clearly delusional, and I was about to get the nurse. But then again, this WAS Danny's best friend. His memory seemed to be slightly shot as well, because he didn't seem to remember that my great-grandpa was dead, but at the very least I'd probably get some more clues as to what happened in gramp's life. And if he thought I was Danny … well, that was okay, too, I guess.

"Don't you remember? Oh, yeah, you wouldn't. You always had the shortest memory out of the three of us. I remember it so well … your family had just been ordered to move out of the house within 24 hours. The city discovered the Fenton Genetic lock on the portal to the ghost zone and said it would be best for the safety of the city to get all the Fentons away from it. They also found the hidden "off" switch your father forgot he installed, so they turned it off and destroyed it as well, just in case. That was a year before we graduated, so you and Sam were FINALLY just getting together."

He stopped and grinned at me. I raised my eyebrows, waiting for him to continue, but all of the sudden he … well, he fell asleep. I stayed floating there, not sure what to do. I cleared my throat and said, "Um. Yeah. Well …"

All of the sudden he woke upfrom his less-than-a-minute nap and went on as if nothing had interrupted him. Old people are weird.

"That as well as the fact that the chances of ghosts coming through the Fenton Portal were impossible made you decide to hang up your suit – literally! Dude, hiding your Danny Phantom suit in the same cabinet as your parents' leftover ones was brilliant! The population of Amity was pretty ticked at your parents for a while when they found out that they were the ones that had caused all the chaos, but they were given a second chance and redeemed themselves after they fought off the small army of ghosts Vlad sent years later. That was when I thought you were going to jump back into fighting, but you were stubborn as heck. Well you're back now – better late than never, right?"

"Erm … right. Hey, while we're talking about my foggy memory, could you remind me how, exactly, I became half-ghost?"

"Well of COURSE you don't remember that too well. After the whole Desiree incident only Sam clearly remembered the 'real' story, remember? Your parents didn't get the ghost portal to work quite the way they wanted it to – well, okay, they couldn't get the darn thing ON - so Sam convinced you to go into the portal and check it out. You pressed some button by accident, the portal zapped you, and you woke up as a ghost!"

"But … that's what happened … to … me …" I floated there, probably with the stupidest look on my face EVER.

I was expecting him to continue the conversation, but when I looked closer at him I realized that he had fallen asleep again. Man, he looked really _old_. Like I said, he was in a wheelchair, and he looked as if he didn't get out of it very often (though the enthusiasm with which he spoke would have led you to believe differently). He had liver spots all over and very few tufts of hair were sticking out from underneath his hat … thing. He was what, ninety, ninety-five years old? All of the sudden, just like before, he woke up and went on as if nothing had happened.

"But enough with all the talking, let's do something fun! Hey, where's Sam? Shouldn't she be close behind?" He looked over my shoulders to see if she was there. I rolled my eyes and felt enough pity for the old man that I was about to come clean when he spotted something to my right and brightened up.

"There you are! Long time no see to you, too! Hey, you don't look like you've aged at all! Man, I feel old now, I knew it, I told you, the comic relief is always the one to go downhill." I looked over, but no one was there. "Danny and I were just talking about you!" He paused. "No, this is Danny and we were already making plans to go somewhere." He paused again. "What do you mean, it's time to go? Stop shining that light in my eyes!" He was starting to slur his speech and droop down in his chair. All of the sudden I realized what was possibly going on and I turned back human. He didn't seem to take notice and kept on murmuring arguments against Sam. "Okay, I'll go with … with it … but if this is another one … of your stupid pranks … huh … that light … kinda … feels … pretty … nice …"

And with that, he shut his eyes and fell asleep. I straightened a couple of things on my way to the door and went to look for a nurse.

I told my family about the oldest of the Fentons' family friends dying, and when my parents asked the Foley family when the funeral was, they told us that they had only recently learned that their patriarch had still been alive to begin with. No wonder he was complaining about his family never visiting him.

When we went to the funeral, my ghost sense was constantly going off, even though I couldn't see any traces of ectoplasm. At first I thought that it was just because I was at a cemetery, but when I went back after the funeral, I was surprised at what I saw. There were several ghosts surrounding Tuckers' plot, all looking … sad. Strange, considering that I recognized most of them from the ghost files I had read – there was the Box Ghost and the Lunch Lady and their daughter (I swear, I must have captured them more than twice as much as any of the other ghosts I'd caught combined), Youngblood, Spectra, Bertrand, Hotep Ra, and one or two others that I had a hard time recognizing. They just floated there for several minutes, and I expected something horrible to happen. Instead, Bertrand floated forward and said, "He … I … I'm proud I was able to call him a foe. He was a klutz and an idiot and I tried to ignore him, but … I don't think Danny could have done half the things he did without Tucker. Say hi to Danny if you see him, wherever his is, kay?" He floated back and the others nodded their heads in agreement. They all touched the tombstone one by one and disappeared.

* * *

BOOM. I slammed into a wall and fell onto the ground as Mischief floated there, laughing.

'Crapcrapcrapcrapcrap' I thought as I sunk into the ground to try and come up with a game plan.

"Oh, running away? That's just fine with me! There's plenty more creative kids out there, I'm sure!" He laughed again and flew off.

I floated up off the ground and buried my face in my hands. It was a tough afternoon so far – all of the sudden ghost activity spiked and I couldn't figure out why. Tons of bizarre things had been happening, like buildings just up and walking about, flying dogs, ninjas running around, and zombies roaming the streets. I thought they were all ghosts at first, but soon found out that they were regular buildings and dogs and humans that were overshadowed with spectral energy. I skipped the second half of school and was well into the afternoon busy flying about all over town trying to secretly catch all these mini-ghosts. It wasn't too long until I found Mischief, the ghost that takes little kids'daydreams and causes them to come to life, causing more havoc.

"Travis?" I looked up and saw Amberly there, bringing me back to the present. "What are you doing? I heard that you skipped out of school right in the middle of class. There's been a ghost alert on for half the town almost all day – you haven't been causing any trouble, have you?"

"Nah. If anything, I've been trying to stop it. Hey, you haven't seen a jester-looking ghost around anywhere, have you?"

"No, why?"

"Well, he's been going around instigating kids to come up with these insane ideas that's been causing a whole lot of pesky things to happen all around town, keeping me busy for the past six hours, and when I finally catch up with him he's not only too powerful for any of the ghost squads to defeat, but I can't beat him with sheer force either, and THERE'S NOTHING ON THE GHOST FILES ON HIM SO I DON'T KNOW HOW TO BEAT HIM!"

Amberly arched an eyebrow at that last part. "Um, yeah, I hate it when that happens. Shouldn't you just, like, imagine something to catch him if that's how his powers work?"

I was about to say something to prove her wrong, but then slumped over when I realized … she was right. "Yeah, okay, I _guess_ I could do that, if you want to do it the EASY way."

"Uh huh. So. You need help?"

I stared at her blankly. Then laughed. "Are you joking? Sometimes **I** have a hard enough time as it is having to deal with these ghosts and sneaking in and out-"

"Wait a sec, _that's_ what you've been sneaking out for? Well, then, you DEFINITELY need help, 'cause your excuses are always laaaaame."

Oops. "Wellll, yeah, maybe I've been ghost hunting on my own …"

"No. I'm SO in from here on out." She gasped in delight as she came to one of her fourteen-year-old realizations. "I could be the unamused sibling that tags along to make sure that her brother doesn't do anything really stupid, and we need some sort of older figure that does all the behind-the-scenes stuff, and of course we need a comic relief …"

"Amb, what the heck are you TALKING about?"

"Duh, don't you pay attention to theater? In every movie and TV series and even in books there's a super action team behind the superhero oh my GOSH this works out perfectly! Brian and Toby already know your secret and they can TOTALLY fill the extra roles!"

I rolled my eyes. "Amb…"

"We need some sort of a name … you know how Danny's name was Danny _Phantom_? You need a cool ghost name, too! Lesse … what are some synonyms for ghost … apparition? No, too much of a mouthful."

"_Amberly …_"

"Poltergeist? No, too evil."

"**_Amberly_** …"

"Specter? No, too overused."

"AMBERLY! SHUT UP ALREADY!"

"But you need …"

"OKAY! I get it; let's just say that my name is … I dunno. Something secret sounding, like … Travis Shadow. Happy?"

"But isn't that the name of …?"

"I DON'T CARE! Now will you give it a rest already?"

She looked shocked for a moment, then looked at the ground and nodded. I sighed as I realized she was trying to make me feel guilty and murmured a quiet, "Gee, sorry, I didn't mean to make you feel bad."

She immediately brightened up and squealed, "Yay! We need some sort of set of communicators, code names, and secret meeting places!"

I rubbed my temples. "I said I'm sorry, not that I'd agree to a team!"

But it was too late. Not only did Amberly have her mind set on teaming up with me, but she later told Brian and Toby that they were team members, too, and they actually AGREED to it.

Two weeks later …

It was Saturday again, and just like the Saturday before that, and the one before that, and all the Saturdays going back for the past few weeks, I was ghost hunting. Except this time I had two people following me around. EVERYWHERE. I had tried to shake Amberly and Travis off my tail, but after the first week or so they easily figured out how to tell if I was there, just invisible, and where I would go to try to hide from them, and the most attacked places where I would have to check up on often.

At least they were getting better at making sure nothing they were armed with hit _me_.

"There's no sign of him here at the park." I heard Amberly's voice say from my earpiece.

"Really? That's one of the first places I'd imagine him going. How are you doing, Toby? Any problems downtown?" I asked.

"No sign of him here, either. 'Course, it's hard to tell – he could be around any corner and I couldn't tell. Unless, you know, I had ghost powers. Man, you're so luck-"

"Don't finish that. Trust me, you don't want 'em." I said, perhaps a little too sternly. "It's a huge responsibility! I'm barely scraping by with school and home, and all the sleep I've lost! Not to mention …"

I heard Toby give a sigh of exasperation over the communicator. "Yeah, whatever Mr. Morals. I'm sure that you have the time of your life. 'Kay, I'm leaving downtown now to the outskirts of the abandoned part of the city. I don't really have to check here, do I?"

"Yeah, actually, ghosts tend to want to make their own little base there for when they're not terrorizing the city."

"Oh. Heh, look, there's something else over there! Away from where I am!" Toby said with a strained voice.

Amberly pitched into the conversation at this point. "Okay, what's wrong? You do have your thermos with you, don't you?"

"Weell … yeah …" Toby's hesitant voice answered after a pause.

"So what's the problem?"

"It's just … I thought there was radiation or something dangerous in this part of town. That's why it's abandoned."

Oh. I realized what Toby was talking about and rolled my eyes. "It's not that bad. I've been there several times and nothing bad has happened to me."

Amberly snickered. "Except half dying."

"Well, yeah, but … HEY! That's beside the point. Listen, I'll go over there and check it out if you want, but I'm telling ya, all that ectoplasmic radiation junk is just a myth."

Now he gave a sigh of relief. "Thanks, dude. I owe ya one."

There was a pause in the conversation as I started to fly over to the old part of town. I was about halfway there when again Toby's voice floated over the communicator. "Hey, what's that? Oh, just a dog. Wait a second … that's NOT a normal color for a dog … is it? Umm … here, puppy. Come here little doggy. Aaw, he's kinda cute. Look, he's sniffing my hand!" I heard a little growl suddenly grow into a bigger, deeper one. "Oh. My. Gosh. Um, ghost boy?" Toby squeaked. "I think I found your loyal monster dog."

I suddenly kicked into overdrive. "Just stay still, I'll be there as soon as I can! Cujo's never bitten anyone, as far as Danny's records say, so try to keep from making any jerky movements!"

"Umm … kay. What about swallowing people whole? Are there any records of that?" Toby whispered in a panicked reply.

"Travis, what's going on? Did you find him, Toby?" Amberly's confused voice questioned into my hear.

"Yeah, he found him. Do you think you could meet me there, Amb? Hurrry!"

In a few more seconds I reached the part of town I thought Toby would be at. Still in a panic, I shouted out, "Toby? Where are you?"

"Ow! Travis, I still have the communicator on!" Amberly said, annoyed.

"Sorry. Hey, Toby? Can you still here me? Toby?" Now I was worried. I stood on a street corner and looked around, when all of the sudden a flash of green and a yell caught my attention. I turned around just in time to see Toby being dragged along by his ankle by a huge, neon green dog just a block down.

"Toby! Hold on, I'm coming!" I flew faster than ever down the street and tried to catch up, but that dog was _fast_. I followed them halfway through the neighborhood, when finally Cujo headed straight for the side of a familiar house and disappeared just as he was about to hit it. I phased in after and looked around.

Great. The Fenton's house. There was no one on the main floor, so I wondered if the huge, green monster had phased through to the next house, when I heard a yelp come up from downstairs. I dove down through the floor, just in time to see Toby's panicked face disappear into the wall. But considering my luck, it couldn't be just any wall, could it? No. It had to be the one with the huge, green, swirling ghost portal.

"Where are you? Trav? Hello? It's Amb. Are you there?"

"Yeah, I'm here."

"Where are you? I'm here near the outskirts and I've found someone's communicator, but I don't see anyone."

"Uhh … you'd better come quick. I'm at the old Fenton house. We've got a major problem on our hands. Do you happen to know your way around the ghost zone?"

**Sorry for the delay in update. I had a family reunion last week up in the mountains, making it hard for me to get ahold of ANYTHING electronic. Anyway, I hope you like this chapter. I know a lot of you have been waiting for some sort of name for Travis, but personally, I like it because of crazy, old Tucker. Just as a fun fact, it's one of the few segments that I had written up long before I actually got to this chapter.**

**Thanks to everyone that reviewed: Ohka Breynekai, Lt. Commander Richie, Sasia, Phantom of a Rose, littlekittykat, wfea, Master of Procrastination, Sqweakie the Wonder Mouse, Siren of Time, katiesparks, Jenna Dax, Samantha-Girl Scout, Anne Camp aka Obi-quiet, Risika135, Jenny210, GoingGhost, and zombie-rodeo-frog.**

**And SPECIAL thanks to Jenny210 and Master of Procrastination for doing fan art for this story. **

**Here's the address to Jenny210's (you know the drill, copy, paste, take out the spaces, etc.): http/ www . deviantart . com / deviation / 35205712 / **

**And once Master of Procrastination gets an address set up for their piece, I'll post it. **


	10. Chapter 10

**Past Participle**

**Chapter 10**

Amberly and I stood facing the ghost portal. "What do you think is on the other side?" She asked.

"No idea."

"How are we going to find Toby?"

"No idea."

"Are we gonna die?"

"No idea."

"Oh, okay. Hold on a sec!" Amberly exclaimed. "Now, I thought that you came here often. Haven't you once thought to go through the portal?"

Admittedly, I had. But I hadn't found any good reason to go in and found too many reasons to keep away from it. I shook my head to clear it up, and without answering her question said to Amberly, "Toby is in there, and the longer he is, the more danger he might be in. I think. Let's go."

Amberly nodded very slightly and we both stepped into the portal.

And started to fall.

"WOAH!" I grasped Amberly's arm and hovered for a sec while we got past the shock of nearly falling through what looked like an eternity.

"Eep. Thanks, Trav."

We looked around and I gasped. Even though I had never been in the ghost zone before, it was an all too familiar place – I had dreamed about it almost every night since the accident. The green sky, the doors floating everywhere, and the islands. It was exactly the same.

"You okay?" Amberly asked.

"Huh? Oh, yeah, sure. It's just … I've _been _here before. I mean, not physically or anything, but … I've had dreams about it. Tons and tons for weeks, now. I thought they were a side effect of me being zapped by the portal, but … they may actually MEAN something."

"Oh, good. So you know your way around then, right?"

"Heh … umm … sure. We're right … umm … here."

She looked at me with an unamused face. "You have no idea, do you?"

"No. Hey, don't look at me like that! It all looks the same to me!"

"Well, how are we supposed to find Toby if you don't know your way around?"

"Well, you're the one pretending like you know what we should do, how about you tell me?"

"How about you two stop bickering, you're giving me a headache!" A voice said from behind us.

I turned around quickly and saw a familiar ghost. Well, sort of familiar – I had seen her file pictures from the information chip, though never in person. "Ember …" I said under my breath. She was leaning back a bit and had her legs crossed with her guitar sitting on her knee, as if she was sitting on an invisible chair. She was also wearing a skull cap with a green flame design on it. In the reclined position she was in and with her flaming hair hidden, she looked very non-threatening, but I held up a glowing green fist anyway, the other arm preoccupied with making sure my little sister didn't fall.

"I'm sorry, do I know you? Oh. You're the new dipstick." She thumbed a few notes on her guitar. "What are you going to do, take away my instrument? That's low – at least Dipstick the First had the decency to let me keep that much."

My fist stopped glowing green, but it was still raised. "What are you talking about?"

She pointed to the skull cap. "Threaded with anti-ecto. Phantom forced it on me right before the portal closed up, and I can't take it off."

Amazingly, I was able to pick up from there from what I read in her file. "Your power comes from your hair. Right."

"Not only does it make me powerless, but I can't go through the portal with it on, either." She looked kinda sad at that and I noticed that, like a lot of the ghosts I fought that Danny had too, she had aged a little. I let my fist down at that and even dared to move a little closer to her.

"So why are you hanging out here near the portal, anyway?"

"Lately it's been the safest place in the Ghost Zone. Even Walker's been hanging around here lately, though I think I saw him go through the portal the other day."

Crud. I knew that that meant I'd probably have a huge mess on my hands when I got back, but that worry was placed aside for a moment. "What do you mean, here's the safest place in the Ghost Zone?"

"Ahem." Amberly cleared her throat theatrically. "Travis," she whispered, "I know this is fascinating, but if the Ghost Zone is dangerous for _ghosts_, that probably means a certain _human_ we know is in a whole lot of trouble right now. We should get going."

"Right." I turned to Ember again. "I still have questions, but I have a more pressing issue to get to. If you've been here for a while, then you saw my friend pass through here. He was dragged in by a huge green dog – what way did they go?"

The blue rock star stood straight up at that, eyes on fire. "Don't you dare talk to me like that! How dare you come in when I'm completely powerless thanks to your 'dear old grandad' and go about ordering me to give you information as if I'm some sort of inferior! Go, before I smash your head in!" She raised her guitar like a baseball bat, and I could have sworn that I saw some blue flames flicker around the edges of her cap.

Without any hesitation at all, I sped off in the opposite direction, hoping that Ember wouldn't follow. When we were in the clear I stopped and breathed a sigh of relief. "Well, that was close."

"Uh-huh. Well, now that we're out of mortal danger, tell me, Einstein, what do you plan on doing now that we're lost _and_ we've angered the only thing between us and the portal back home?"

"Ouch. Sarcastic, much?"

"Sorry. Inter-dimensional travel tends to make me a little cranky."

I arched an eyebrow at that, taking a second to realize that she was joking … sort of, anyway. "Whatever. Don't worry, I have things under control. One, I can go invisible, remember? And with Ember powered down, I doubt she'll be able to sense I'm there. Getting past her shouldn't be a problem. Two, we're not completely lost. After I mentioned Cujo, I saw her eyes flicker over toward this direction, meaning that they probably came this way. Nifty little reflex people tend to have, actually …"

"Yeah, okay, that's cool; I'll give you that, but what if they changed direction? What'll we do now?"

"Uhh …" Her question was answered by a huge doggie bone that floated by from our right. "Follow the trail, I guess."

I turned to the right and flew along a trail that I hoped was straight, though it was hard to tell with all the doors I ended up having to dodge along the way. Neither Amberly nor I talked much, too scared to make a sound that could alert our attention there. When Amberly said something, it was usually along the lines of, "It's so cold" or, "You should have thought to at least look for a map" and mostly, "don't ghosts have some sort of sense of order? Half of these doors are completely _destroyed_. Where _are_ the ghosts, anyway?_" _or some sort of complaint. Mostly I just worried about Toby.

Toby had been my best friend for a few years. We met in Jr. High – I wasn't very popular because my parents scared off a lot of my classmates, even though everyone looked up to them. They're the kind of celebrities that you admire them for what they do, but because of what they do you want to admire them from a distance. Anyway, Toby was new that year and didn't really care about that stuff – mostly he was trying to fit in, too. He and I eventually became really good friends, and he'd always been there to back me up through all the crazy things that I had to deal with, being a Fenton and all (though sometimes he just laughed at the situations I found myself in, like when I got roped into doing the parade). Even though me being half-ghost seemed to weird him out a bit, he was still going on patrol with me and Amberly, and always made up excuses to cover me. I hated to admit that I liked both his and Amb's support, but it was true. And now that he was literally dragged into the ghost zone because of me, I felt terrible.

Amberly and I were flying for a very long time – at least an hour, anyway – and I was just about to choose a random island to drop down on and allow myself to black out (flying for long amounts of time was still very tiring to me), when I heard a sad, small bark followed by a whimper. I turned and flew toward that, whispering to Amberly, "Hear that? I think that that may be Cujo, and he sounded like he was in pain."

"I didn't hear anything, and why are you so worried about him? Wasn't he the one to kidnap Toby?"

"Well, yeah, but if we find Cujo, we'll find Toby."

Just as I said that, a small green object ran straight toward us, whimpering along the way. Expecting him to slow down, I was totally caught by surprise when he jumped into my free arm and shivered there. I floated there, dumbfounded for a few seconds, 'till he started calming down. I was afraid that once he calmed down he'd go all huge on me, but instead he looked up, sniffed my face, then promptly proceeded to lick it.

I started to go toward the direction the puppy came from, but both beings in my arms protested. Cujo whimpered again and started to jump out of my arm, and Amberly said, "Hey! Woah! Hold on there! If big scary dog is afraid of something over there, then I doubt two teenagers would fare much better."

"Toby, remember? We _have_ to get him. I can't just leave a friend here."

That shut her up for a moment, though Cujo was still scared and abandoned us when we caught view of a large, scary-looking castle.

Amberly and I landed right in front of the huge, double-door entrance. I cautiously pushed open one of the doors – it opened surprisingly easy for looking so big and heavy. My little sister cleared her throat, and I looked at her only to find that she had backed away a little bit. She didn't even have to say anything – I knew that whatever it was going to be, it would be a complaint. This pissed me off.

"AMBERLY! You have done nothing but complain ever since we stepped through this portal. It's annoying enough as it is, but coming from you it's even worse! You think I like being in here? No. But my best friend is in there, and I am NOT about to leave him in a place all by himself where he is surrounded by ghosts, who, in case you haven't noticed, aren't too fond of humans. _You're_ the one who thought that my powers were so cool from the moment I got them. Well guess what? With these powers came a lot of other stuff that isn't so cool, and they're things that I have to deal with, _including_ the ghost zone. If someone gets lost, it's MY responsibility to find them! Just because I have powers doesn't mean we're living in some sort of Saturday morning cartoon where the good guy always wins. Now, you can either help me find Toby, like you said we should before you found out the ghost zone isn't exactly a carnival, or you can find your own way home!"

I was shouting by the end of my rant. Amberly looked at me, hurt and shocked. She closed her eyes and wiped away a couple of tears. I realized that shouting was a little excessive, and I started softly, "Amberly, listen …"

But then she looked back up at me with a resolute face, with no hint of hurt or shock left. "You know what? You're right. I haven't been rational. I'm being a total chicken right now, and that's not fair to you or Toby. Speaking of which, we need to find him, and judging from Cujo's reaction, he's probably in here." At that, she marched up to the door, opened it all the way and looked back at me. "Are you coming?"

I was so taken back by her change of mood that I almost didn't know what to say. All I could do was follow her in.

We walked in carefully, not knowing what to expect, but it seemed clear. It was dark and musty and creepy, but no signs of life. There was a big hallway in front of us, and doors to either side of us. After a moment's hesitation, I led the way down the hallway. Amberly followed a few feet behind, constantly checking behind us. Everything was quiet, until we got about halfway through. Suddenly, big spikes shot out of the wall pointing straight toward us, and the walls started moving, and _fast_. "RUN!" I shouted, and ran as fast as I could toward the end, where I could see another room where the walls weren't so deadly. I got to the end when there was just barely enough allowance for me to slip through (though I noticed a gash on my arm oozing green blood), and turned around to make sure Amberly was okay.

She wasn't. She was still at least ten feet away from the end, and there was no room for her to run fast.

Time slowed down in the split second when I saw her hand reaching out to me, horror on her face. I reached out and started to run to her, but it was too late. My hand ran into a solid wall.

I couldn't believe it. Just moments before she was right there behind me. And all of the sudden she was _gone_. I screamed out her name and fell to my knees. Out loud I said, "I can't believe how stupid I am. I should have realized that I could run faster than her. I'm sorry, Amb. I'm so sorry. I just …"

"Need to cool it!" A familiar voice said behind me. I got up quickly and turned around. It was _Toby_. I was so shocked at seeing him that I wasn't sure whether to yell at him for taking Amberly's death so lightly or hug him for being all right.

"So guess what? In the ghost zone, humans are the ghosts! Well, kinda. I already tried flying and ectoplasmic blasts, but I guess I'll have to wait for those."

I was still baffled. "Wha … huh? Wait …?"

He continued on as if I had said nothing. "But there is one power that I have that I bet you don't here, Mr. 'I'm so cool with my ghostliness.' Watch me as I get the turn to be the hero."

And with that he walked straight through the wall that was once the hallway. I yelled after him and tried following, but I ran into the wall, still solid. I even tried going intangible, but it didn't make a difference. Desperate, I pounded my fists on the wall and yelled again, my voice starting to grow hoarse.

A few moments later, Toby reappeared from the wall, leading Amberly out by the hand. I was so relieved to see them both alive and unscathed that I couldn't help myself but pull them both into a hug. "You're okay! You're alive! You're … you're confusing me." I stepped back and looked at them both, wondering what the heck was going on.

Toby shrugged. "Like I said, here in the ghost zone we _humans_ are like ghosts."

"Well yeah, that's what you said, but what does it mean? Amb, I saw you … the spikes! And Toby … you're okay! We thought that you were really hurt! Cujo was scared of this place, so we thought that you were a goner!"

Amberly smiled. "I thought that I was going to die, too, but it was really weird. I saw the spikes close together, but I didn't feel them. Well, I felt _something_, but it wasn't painful. It was weird, like … like I was diving into water, but I didn't just feel it on my skin, but _inside_ me, too. It was kinda dark, and I wondered if I had just died instantly and became a ghost, but then I felt someone grab my hand and drag me out here, and … well, I guess I'm still alive … right?"

Toby nodded. "Yep. When that ghost mutt dragged me to the castle and just dropped me off here, I sprung the same trap, too. I thought I had died, but then I got out and was still in the same castle, so I tried walking through the walls and found out that ghost building materials aren't exactly solid … at least, not to humans. So I've been hanging out here waiting for some sort of rescue. Glad you guys finally made it."

"Hey, that's cool!" Amberly exclaimed. "Hey Travis, change back to human and see if you can walk through the walls, too!"

Toby waved his hand, dismissing the idea. "He's still half ghost, it probably won't make a difference."

"Hey, a little support would be nice!" I said as I changed to human. I have to admit, I held my breath as I took a step into the wall, nervous that I'd end up with a face full of plaster. To my surprise, I stepped straight through, and felt that familiar weirdness that came only when I was phasing through stuff.

I stepped backward and found myself facing the wall again. "Huh. Well THAT'S good to know" I remarked, glad that I could manage myself in a couple of different ways in the ghost zone but still wishing that I had known it sooner so I could have spared myself the terror of seeing my sister "die" and also the deep gash on my arm (it was deep enough that my ghost powers probably wouldn't be able to heal it without Brian's help).

Toby didn't seem too happy for a moment, but a split second later he was smiling and saying, "Great! Well, let's go on ahead and get home. You did see the way home, right? … Guys? You did watch where you were going, right?" When neither of us answered, he slapped his forehead. "Great. Well, one step at a time, right? Through the wall we go!" He pointed to it like a general leading his troops into battle and marched right through it. Amberly and I hesitated, though, and looked at each other, both wondering the same thing. I was the first to say it – "He seems rather … chipper for just having been dragged through and then abandoned in the ghost zone by a big ghost dog."

"Suspicious?" Amberly asked.

"Certainly. It's almost as if - " I was cut off by Toby poking his head through the wall.

"Well, are you guys coming or not?" The tone of his voice was enthusiastic – almost as if we were going to a party. It was creepy. I threw one more doubtful look at Amberly and we both walked through the wall.

Once I made sure that neither Amberly nor Toby would fall, I took off flying and we started looking for a way back to the portal. I followed the trail of doggie items that Cujo had left behind that Amberly and I originally followed to get there, so there wasn't much to say until we got to the end of that. While we were waiting, though, Amberly made a little attention-getting noise and said to Toby, "So … you didn't see any ghosts? I mean, except for Cujo?"

I wasn't looking straight at him, so I couldn't tell for sure, but I could have sworn I had seen out of the corner of my eye his eyes flickering back in the direction of the castle before he replied, "Nope, none at all. I was surprised myself, but I guess I just got lucky."

"That's strange," Amberly continued, "because something back there sure seemed to frighten Cujo a whole lot. I just thought … you know, whatever scared a dog like that would be pretty tough."

"Heh, well, you know … being dragged around is pretty annoying, so I finally just yelled at Cujo and that seemed to do a pretty good job of scaring him off. You just have to show who's boss, that's all." The words were shrugging it off as nothing abnormal, but his tone was fierce, telling us that he didn't want to talk about the subject any more.

I wanted to believe that Toby was okay – sure, he was physically unharmed except for a few scrapes from being dragged around by the ankle, but as for his mental health …

I doubted it.

It took us a while, but we finally found our way home. I dropped Toby off at his house right away, telling him that he should get some rest ("What, are you my mom?" was his response), and then flew Amber and myself home.

Since we started looking for Cujo earlier in the morning, it was only mid-afternoon when we got home. Amber and I crashed right away on the couch and fell asleep while watching the news for any more ghost sightings (there were, and even though I knew I needed to go help out, I didn't care).

Our parents woke us up for dinner, surprised at how long our naps were, and after we ate (and surprised them again with how much we consumed), I went to my room to see if there was anything on the information chip on how to get around the ghost zone. It figured – someone had named the file, "zone, ghost", so it was way on the bottom of the menu, down where I hadn't gotten to yet.

Just as I was printing off several pages of the map, I heard a crash downstairs, a growl, a shout to get a thermos, and Amberly calling up to me, "Travis! Heads up!"

I grabbed my thermos and went ghost, expecting some tough-looking ghost to crash into my room, but instead a familiar little green dog phased in through my door instead. I dropped my thermos as he leapt into my arms and started licking my face.

"How'd you get in through the ghost shield? Danny's files said that you have a knack for getting into places you're not supposed to, but _dang_, a _ghost shield_?"

I heard a couple of footsteps running up the stairs and my dad crying, "Stop right where you are, ghost! If you dare lay a finger on our son, why I'll …"

I quickly changed back and turned Cujo invisible, hoping that it wouldn't look too much like I was holding an invisible dog. My parents kicked open the door and were ready for anything, but were disappointed when all they saw was me, looking like I was trying to look like I wasn't holding anything.

They looked at me like I was crazy for a second, then said, "has a ghost gone through here? Where'd it go?"

I shrugged and said, "I didn't see anything. Must have gone straight up to the third story."

"Right! Thanks, son. To the third story!"

I closed the door behind them and set Cujo down on my bed. For the first time I noticed something strange – he had something stuck underneath his collar. I thought back to earlier in the day. I noticed that he had it stuck there after he ran away from the castle, but it hadn't registered. I carefully slipped it out and unrolled it. It was a message written in the same handwriting and on the same brown paper as the one I had gotten weeks ago from the vultures.

"_Halfa – _

_So you've finally come to the ghost zone. Well, I hope you got to admire some of the work we've done. However, it is no place for you to be. We warned you before – stay out of our way. _

_We're closer than you think."_

I had nearly forgotten about that first letter. At the time I just dismissed it as an empty threat. But getting a second one that was from the same people … well, I decided that I was going to be a little on my guard, anyway. It was hard, though, when their letters were so vague. Was there something wrong in the ghost zone that I missed? I remembered something that Ember said about the ghost zone not being safe, and come to think of it, when Amberly said that it was a mess it did conflict a little with what my dreams had been showing me, but that didn't help any …

My thoughts were interrupted when the wonder pooch jumped back on me and started licking my face for the _n_th time that day. I got him off again, sighed and told him, "Clearly you're not going to go away. Listen, I'll let you stay, but only if you promise to keep a low profile. That means no barking, no going all big scary monster when my friends and family are around, and hiding or going invisible when pretty much anyone other than me, Amb, Toby and Brian are around. Do you understand all that, or do I have weeks of training ahead of me?"

He barked cheerfully in reply, which was the _first_ thing I told him not to do. Great. Just great.

**Holy cow, I'm still alive! Sorry for the super-long wait, for anyone who's still even remotely interested in this story. Life's been … well, hectic, to say the least. Who knew that transitioning from High School to College would be so much work? (Sarcasm … heh.) Actually, I can't blame the lack of updates entirely on that – most of it is just because I had writer's block and did nothing about it. **

**Anyway, I've found myself with a couple of weeks of free time before classes start, so I'll try as hard as I can to write as much as I can. Thanks to anyone and everyone who waited patiently, and I'll try to update again when I can.**

**Fanart for the story:**

By Jenny 210: http://jenny210. Master of Procrastination: http://thetwilightzone.


	11. Chapter 11

**Past Participle**

**Chapter 11**

"Woah, hold on, you can fall asleep _after_ I've finished patching you up." I had established a tradition of some sort of meeting up with Brian at school before even most of the staff came so he could take care of the wounds I had received from the previous night's ghost hunting. Some days were worse than others – sometimes I healed all on my own in no time flat, and some days I had bruises and gashes so bad I could barely hide them from anyone. Today was one of the latter.

I yawned and said, "I can't keep up these 48-hour days fighting ghosts AND avoiding the newspaper. Did you see the front page yesterday? There was an article on a "mysterious ghost boy" that a few people have caught sight of who swear it's Danny Phantom. On the _front page!_ If anyone else sees me I'm going to have to hold a press conference clarifying that I'm not." I yawned again. "Besides, sleeping's been so nice lately – I haven't had any dreams at all since I went to the ghost zone. Good thing, too. I get enough of ghosts when I'm awake."

Brian finished wrapping my ankle up and asked, "Are you sure you don't want a professional to look at this? It's really swollen and purple. It could be broken, man."

"Don't sweat it. If you really think it's broken, just set it and it'll be as good as new by the end of second period. And even if it isn't … I dunno. I'll just hover everywhere for the rest of my life." I said between yawns. Brian was saying something about over-exaggerating, but I was long past listening to him at that point.

The next thing I knew I was being woken up to the sound of the bell for first period. I got up quickly (well, as fast as a groggy person could, anyway) and tried to make myself seem like everything was perfectly normal. Unfortunately, my teacher was already in there.

"Good to see you'll be joining us today, Mr. Fenton." Mrs. Crenshaw was my English teacher, who did not approve of sleeping or leaving in the middle of class or … well, basically everything I had to do with my new "part-time job". None of the teachers liked it, of course, but Mrs. Crenshaw _hated_ me for it.

She was about to say something else, but students were starting to come in. She thought for a second and said instead, "See me after class."

I couldn't pay attention to the lesson. Between the terror of having to talk to Mrs. Crenshaw one on one and the fact that I was exhausted from not only catching twelve ghosts the night before but pulled an all-nighter doing so, it was a next to impossible task.

The bell rang and I tried sneaking out of class with the rest of the crowd, but not even ghost powers could have gotten me past that woman, not when she had made it a point of telling me to stay _before _class. "Not so fast, Mr. Fenton. Sit down."

I gulped and nervously and picked out a desk right in front of hers. "Oh, calm down, you're not in trouble." She said after I sat down. I must have looked at her like she had two heads or something, because she continued, "I know you think I hate you. A lot of students think I hate them. It's part of being a teacher. Mr. Fenton, I'm concerned about you. I've been teaching for twenty-five years and have been around at least a hundred students each year, so by now I can read students fairly easily. I can tell who is just acting like a dimwit and who really is rather stupid; I can tell who has emotional problems and who has problems with abuse at home."

She paused and looked at me so intently I was starting to squirm. Where was this going? "You, however, I don't understand. You came in at the beginning of the year and were just fine. Not my brightest student, but you were certainly nowhere near being an idiot. Then, all of the sudden, you come to school tired _every day_ – at least, when you come to school or don't leave in the middle of class – you started turning in homework less and less, and as of late I've been noticing some severe injuries that you've been trying to cover up. Yes, I did notice your ankle as you were trying to sneak out, as hard as you tried to pretend it wasn't there. Now, you're not coming to class high, so I'm assuming that you're not doing drugs, and your emotional stability hasn't changed, and your injuries are not characteristic of those received of abuse at home. I can tell you're trying to do well in school, but something is interfering. I understand that you probably don't want to tell me – most teenagers feel they can take care of their problems on their own – but I'm not an entirely cold, unfeeling teacher. I like to see my students succeed, and you have _plenty_ of potential to succeed. So tell me, what is it that is preventing you from doing so?"

Ah. THAT'S what she was getting at. I tapped my finger on my desk thoughtfully as I tried to think of an excuse that was plausible. I was so tired that I simply couldn't think straight – every time I started to think of something I'd run into some sort of mental wall. I sighed as I just gave up and finally said, "It's my job. I have a job that … that comes with certain responsibilities. And I'm the only one that can take care of them, even though it's really dangerous. It's a job that takes up a lot of time, and sometimes keeps me up all night, like last night. I can't tell you _why_ I have to do it, I just do. I'm sorry that I'm wasting your time. I'm trying, but … it's hard to do everything."

Mrs. Crenshaw let out a long, slow breath when I finished and said, "You're not going to give me any details?" I nodded. "Very well then. I'll take your word for it. While it wouldn't be fair for me to be more lenient in your grading or excuse any assignments, I will offer to help you out on your homework. I'm at school an hour after the final bell rings every day anyway, so if you'd like some tutoring from me at that time than I am willing to do so. It's up to you."

I was surprised. When I said that I thought that my English teacher hated me, I wasn't exaggerating. "Thank you, Mrs. Crenshaw. I'll try to come, but …"

"Your job. I understand. Just come when you can. Here, let me write an excuse for your next class. I'm sure it'll surprise your teacher to see an _excused_ tardy from you, if your attendance record and amount of parent-teacher conferences for it is the same for him as it is in mine."

I got up and was halfway out the door when she added, "One last piece of advice, Mr. Fenton. I know you feel like this 'job' is something you _have_ to do, but the only things you really _have_ to do in life is eat, breathe, and pay your taxes." I chuckled a little at the last part, and she smiled as well and said, "Yes, an interesting little joke that _my_ English teacher would tell us, but the point is, everything you do you _choose_ to do. No one is forcing your actions out of you."

That afternoon I spent some time going through more of the ghost files. They were a lot bigger than I thought – it must have taken years of compiling all the information Danny, Sam and Tucker got to finish it all, and I hadn't even touched the alternate dimension part of the chip. I was even adding some of my own information at this point, too, just for the sake of having easy-to-view data when I needed it.

This particular afternoon I was looking up all of the ghosts that I hadn't come up against yet. I didn't do it too often – mostly I only had the time and, quite frankly, interest to look up the ones that I had come up against myself – but I was at least somewhat familiar with who most of the major ghosts Danny fought against were. Anyway, there weren't too many ghosts left to look through by that particular point in time, the portal having been open for going on five months, but some of them had large enough files that I had previously only skimmed through them. One of them was a large file on a ghost named Vlad Plasmius.

Like I said, I had skimmed through his file before and was actually curious at this point that I hadn't yet met him, considering that the basic gist of his file was, "Dangerous we hate his guts he's extremely creepy stay away from him." I read through the first part, which was the basic information – powers, sightings, damage done, etc. Some of it seemed really strange at first, but then things started making sense when I got to the more detailed information about him – _he was a half ghost as well_. Danny wasn't the only one! The name of his human half was Vlad Masters – I recognized that name again, remembering seeing it mentioned in Skulker's profile. I quickly opened up another window connecting myself to the web and looked up the name. I realized that his name _was_ one of those names that I had heard in history class before. He was one of the wealthiest men in the entire world at that time, though no one knew how he got so rich even after he mysteriously disappeared at the relatively young age of 50. Basically, he was famous for being famous. Turning back to the information chip I couldn't find anything on his disappearance either, though I did find out that his wealth was obtained through rather dirty means (meaning he would overshadow people – an idea I was too weirded out with to try myself, though I knew it was possibl – and make them give him stuff and/or would phase in and out of banks and museums and steal valuable things).

The thing that was by far the most interesting was the fact that he lived in a mansion in Wisconsin, where he had a secret lab with all sorts of ghost technology – including a ghost portal. I stopped reading for a minute to think – would the ghost portal still be working? If it was, why hadn't there been more ghosts around before I opened the portal? But then again, there were ghosts, and they had to come from _somewhere_. But why had there been so few? Well, there wasn't really a reason to send many, I guess. Had there been _any_ reason? If not, why send any at all? Granted, this would be assuming he was still alive, which was doubtful.

I closed his file quickly and looked through the chip, remembering that there was a list of Fenton inventions, checking to see if there was anything hidden in the lab that could possibly help me out with a plan that was starting to form in my head. I smiled when I found something that was _perfect_.

I ran across the hall to Amberly's room. I knocked obnoxiously until she opened her door. "What is it, ya freak?"

"Call Toby and pack your bags. We're going on a road trip!"

Amberly and Toby's nails were clawing so deeply into the seats in the Specter Speeder that you'd have thought that they were hanging on for dear life.

"Travis, are you sure that this is a good idea?" Amberly asked.

"Sure, I mean, the mansion in Wisconsin is abandoned and judging by the amount of ghosts that have come out of the portal there it's not a very popular place with the ghosts, either."

"Oh, I'm not arguing with you about that. No, that part is all fine and dandy. I'm talking about the fact that we're speeding through the ghost zone in an 80 year old hovercraft. Did you know that hover technology at the time this was built wasn't even supposed to be _possible_?" Her voice went an octave higher at the last word.

"It's no big deal – WOAH!" I swerved the Speeder out of the way of a smaller island quickly before continuing, "I checked, this thing is secure enough, and it's really easy to drive, too!"

"Travis. You failed your driving test _four times_ before getting your license, then got it taken away after three months. YOU'RE A TERRIBLE DRIVER!"

"Oh, come on, I'm not _that bad_, am I, Toby?"

He turned his pale face toward me and nodded. "Yeah, you are. Did your great-great grandparents invent a Fenton Barf Bag or something to go with this death trap?"

"And again, I ask why we're going through the _ghost zone_ to get to Wisconsin" Amberly added shortly after screaming at me to get out of the way of another floating rock. "There are a lot less flying hazards, for one, and even though we've seen absolutely no ghosts so far, we're bound to meet at least one by the time we get there."

"Listen, I'm not about to jump into the ghost zone without doing my research. It takes two-thirds the time to get to Wisconsin through the ghost zone than it would be if we were to go in the human world. It's not a whole lot of time saved, but considering that we're not going to be there for more than a couple of hours it is enough time saved to get us there and back without our parents questioning why we were gone so long. And for your second concern, Cujo's following behind us." I leaned out the window and called back to the dog, "And you'll do a good job of protecting us, won't you? Who's a good boy? Who wants a doggie bone when we get back?"

"It's sick how much you like that dog."

"Are you kidding? Now that he's trained how can you NOT like him?"

Ignoring my praise of the dog she continued, " So where did you tell mom and dad we were going anyway?"

"I just told them we were roped into doing yet more volunteer work with Brian. I didn't even have to make up _what_ we were doing, they just told me to have a good time."

The map in the Specter Speeder showed that we were just about to come up on Vlads portal when all of the sudden within split seconds of each other my ghost sense went off and a huge red monster with four arms popped up from nowhere.

"Toby, do you think that you can take the controls?" I asked as I was going ghost. He weakly nodded. "Good. See that blue dot right there? That's the portal. Drive toward it and don't stop for _anything_ until you get through, got it?"

He nodded again and took the controls as I jumped out of the side of the Speeder.

"Wait!" Amberly shouted just as they were driving away. "How are you going to find your way?"

"Don't worry about me, just _go_! Cujo, you go, too!" Cujo had been doing his big vicious growling beast act once he saw the ghost, but he still was small in comparison. When I told him to go he looked at me with sad eyes before bounding off closely behind the Speeder.

Just as I told them to go I was thrown aside with one gigantic hand. It sent me spinning head over heels and knocked all the air out of me. By the time I recovered the house-sized ghost was coming at me again, roaring loudly, claws on all four arms aimed right at me.

I tried dodging the attack, but the ghost was just too big – it easily reached up and grabbed me by the ankle, pulling me down then throwing me into a rock. As if that weren't bad enough, I didn't even have time to peel myself away from the boulder before it shot me with an ectoplasmic beam. For being so big, this guy was _fast_.

My reflex in battle was to go invisible if I started to get too beat up. This confused the beast, but it didn't take long before it decided to go in the direction that the speeder went.

"No!" I shouted and shot the biggest ectoplasmic blast I could at the huge beast. It didn't do him a whole lot of harm – it seemed to annoy him more than anything. He turned back to where I was and let out another huge roar.

"I will NOT let you touch them, you big, smelly beast! Come and get me!"

Immediately it attacked me with its claws, this time managing to scratch some pretty deep gashes on my side. I held my side to stop the bleeding a bit and flew around the ghost's head in circles as I tried to decide what to do. I'd taken on fairly big ghosts before, though none quite so big as this and none with four arms. Two arms, yes, and that wasn't a problem, but not four arms.

'I should have told Cujo to stay. It'd be a lot easier if there were two of us.' I thought as the monster attempted to bat at me like an annoying fly buzzing around one's head. 'Or two of _me_ …'

Flying up as high and fast as I could so I had a couple of seconds before the huge beast caught up with me, I concentrated as hard as I could to create a clone of myself. It was my first attempt, and I knew that Danny had tried at least once before the video and he still didn't succeed, but I had a tiny bit more ghost blood than he did and it was always worth a try, even if it wasn't in the most ideal of circumstances. I heard a _pop_ to my right and saw …

Well, _something_. He looked like me, but with only half of my body parts. He had one leg, one and a half arms, one eye, and half a head of hair. "Umm … huh. Well. Do you think you can … I dunno, be a distraction?" I addressed … well, myself.

He looked at himself and rolled his eyes before replying, "I may have only half my limbs, but I still have a whole brain. Besides, you're no beauty yourself." I was going to ask what he meant by that but was attacked from behind by the red giant. When I recovered from the ectoplasmic beam fired at me, I turned around and saw the other me flying around and firing an ectoplasmic beam at the ghost's face with his hand.

I caught up with myself and did the same thing. Even though there wasn't a whole lot of extra me, it made the difference – the oddity of being attacked by one and a half Travis' was confusing enough to put me a little ahead, but twice the attack and strength was extremely helpful. I and me weakened him enough that when I both delivered a final kick, it knocked him out.

Me and me floated toward each other and high fived (I have to admit, high fiving myself was something that just sounded too good to resist), though once my two hands touched the other me was sucked back into me. All of the sudden I had a few minutes of memory of the battle from the perspective of my duplicate – and I understood what he meant when I said that I was "no beauty" myself. In the process of cloning myself I lost several teeth, an ear, several tufts of hair and a foot.

I shook my head clear. "Ugh. Weird. Cool that I can make duplicates, but weird. Note to self … practice that a bit more."

I flew off toward the general direction of Vlad's portal, which I was fortunate to be able to find without too much trouble. I was exhausted from both the battle and from making a duplicate, and was grateful when I saw the swirling green circle.

I passed through it and nearly collapsed on the floor, calling out for everyone. They came running around a corner but stopped once they saw me. Amberly let out a little shriek and jumped back a little; Toby and Cujo stared at me like I had grown another eyeball.

"What?" I asked after they all stared at me for an annoyingly long time, then Amb and Toby broke out in such hard laughter that they were crying (Cujo kept on staring at me).

"Your … your face" Amb finally gasped out while throwing a hand out to support herself on the edge of a table.

"_WHAT_?!" I forgot how weak I was getting and looked around frantically for something reflective, picking up a shiny metal tray to look at myself. I had, in fact, grown another eyeball, right in the middle of my forehead. "Great. Just great." I muttered and set the tray down. I hit myself in the back of my head, not knowing what else to do.

That seemed to work, because Cujo stopped looking at me weird and Amberly groaned, "Aaw, you should have kept it. You actually looked only half so ugly as you usually do."

"Thanks, Amb. Thanks a lot. You know, cloning yourself is not as easy as it looks." I was not very amused and getting more and more tired, having to support myself against a table, though Amberly was now hiccupping between laughs. "Are you guys done?"

"Yeah, yeah, okay, but … you don't look so good." Toby was giggling, but ceased once he looked at my side – the one that was still freely bleeding.

Immediately Amberly stopped laughing and said, "Ooh, that's nasty. How much blood have you lost? Lemme look for something to bandage that up." Her voice was getting more and more faint the closer she got to the end of her sentence until it sounded like she was underwater … she started to look very wavy as well.

I tried to follow after her and tell her that I was okay, but I blacked out.

I woke up slowly, my senses having a hard time kicking in. The floor was cold and hard, and all I could hear was murmuring above me. My vision was blurry, so I wasn't sure I was seeing right when I saw not three, but four figures surrounding me, though the fourth one _was_ much more blurry than the other three. Once it spoke, though, I was surprised awake. "Aah, it looks like the young badger is finally awake. Nice to meet you, Mr. Fenton."

_**Gasp! **_**I wonder who it could ****be?**** Okay, so it's not hard to guess, but I think you'll be surprised with what is actually going on. ****And yeah, i****t's a shorter chapter, but for the sake of dramatic effect and the flow of the story it's best to leave it here. **

**Thanks to Ann****e**** Camp aka Obi-Quiet****for reviewing**** the last chapter, and again, I apologize a thousand times to everyone who had been keeping track of the story and then had to wait so long before another update. I'm going to try hard to keep writing this time and even try**** to**** write ahead so there's at least one chapter ready to go in case something ****happens. **


	12. Chapter 12

**Past Participle**

**Chapter 12**

_"__Aah__, it looks like the young badger is finally awake. __Nice to meet you, Mr. Fenton."_

I suddenly sat up straight, surprising everyone while doing so. "Travis, you've lost a lot of blood, you shouldn't be moving!"

But I ignored Amberly and focused on the fourth figure. "Who the … what?" I was staring face-to-face with Vlad Masters.

But something was off. First of all, he would have been a shriveled-up prune by now, if he was still alive. By all logic, he should have been _dead_ by now, and fully ghost, but I was face-to-face with a younger, white-haired human looking Vlad Masters, just like how he looked in the file photo. The second thing that was off was that he looked kind of like I did when I was intangible, but it was different, somehow. I got up, placed my inhibitions aside, and promptly stuck my hand through his shoulder. My hand didn't just go through him, though – it was like the action disrupted the way his entire body looked for a moment.

"You aren't a ghost, are you?" I asked, only realizing then that I could very well have ticked off one of the more powerful beings Danny ever went up against, and in that case preparing for a potentially ugly scene.

"Alas, no, as you have just discovered I am only a shadow of the person I truly am. I am an artificial intelligence unit programmed with my memories and personality, and as you have also seen, my optical units are getting a little old, so if you would please _call off your mutt_ I can address you with at least a little dignity." Cujo, fascinated by my putting my hand through the Vlad hologram and disrupting the image, had been jumping through the hologram back and forth several times before I finally did call him off (though it _was_ very funny to watch).

"Thank you. Now, may I ask why, exactly, you have decided to intrude on my property? Your friends have been no help in giving me information with all their fussing about your passing out and blood loss."

I drew in a breath to get ready to reply, then stopped abruptly. I paused, thought, and then said, "You know, I don't think that we're here for any actual _reason_. I just read about this place and about you in these files that Danny made, and I wanted to see if there was anything, I dunno, important here or something like that. I mean, you were his arch enemy, so I thought it would be a good idea to check out what was here to see what could be potentially used against me, or even what things I could use. Anyway, I assume there is something important here, because that huge beast outside seemed pretty intent on keeping us out …"

Vlad laughed at this. "Oh, that thing? No, he just holds a little grudge against me for stealing from him."

"Stealing what?" I asked, curious.

"Oh, it's no matter. That was years ago."

"Oookaaay … hold on a sec …" I suddenly realized something that I should have caught onto right when I woke up. "How do you know my name?"

"My boy, it's not that hard to figure out. You bear a striking resemblance to young Daniel, and even if you didn't, you don't _seriously_ think that I would set up an AI system contained to my lab? No! My computer is linked and can link up to anything electronic in the entire world! Try as hard as you might, boy, you can't hide from everyone." He pointed to a computer monitor, which played back several clips from security cameras of me going ghost and back at different times and places.

I was horrified … I didn't know that there were that many cameras everywhere! How many people knew my secret, then? Masters must have read the expression on my face, because he said, "Worried? You shouldn't be. I'm not going to let anyone expose you – I erased all the original recordings. I have the only proof that there is a half ghost in existence."

"Uhh … well, thank you." I was taken aback – for being evil, he sure was nice.

"Don't thank me yet, why do you think I kept them? So _I _can be the one to exploit you when the time comes!" He laughed evilly at this. I waved my hand through his holographic face, making it look like something created by Picasso for a few seconds. "_Would you please refrain from doing __that!__"_

"Yeah, okay. So tell me, how are you going to pull off this evil plan when the real you disappeared years ago? I don't know what people thought of AI half a century ago, but after the AI disaster twenty years ago pretty much no one trusts computers that can think on their own. Unless you cryogenetically froze yourself, you're _stuck_." I asked, not really convinced that this guy was fully sane.

"Yes, well, that AI misfortune was disappointing, but this AI system is simply to keep track of scientific breakthroughs until I can figure out the secret to immortality. You see, you hit the nail right on the head…" As the hologram said that, a chamber on the far side of the room opened up dramatically, shedding a blue light in the room. I cast a concerned look at my two friends, silently asking them if it was a good idea to even be here anymore, with the crazy AI and all. They shrugged as if to say, "Why not? It's just a hologram."

We approached the chamber slowly, then drew back with an "eew!" when we saw what was in it. Sure enough, the psycho had frozen himself, perfectly preserved, sleeping peacefully until the day he could wake up and live forever.

I shook my head sadly and told the hologram, "You are one seriously crazed-up-"

"DON'T SAY ANOTHER WORD!" For the first time since I saw him he completely lost his air of dignity and superiority. He cleared his throat, regained his egotistical air and continued, "Yes, well, all of you young people think I'm crazy. But you won't be laughing when I become the most powerful being in the world! Both my human side and my ghost side will live on, and I can have the best of both worlds! You'll see … you'll all see!"

Toby cleared his throat. "Umm … you do know that scientists proved a few years ago that immortality was impossible … right?"

"Yes, well, that doesn't mean anything. The experiment was a fluke. A fluke!" At this point the hologram was talking more to itself than to us.

Toby leaned over to me and whispered, "I don't think the optical units are the only things that are busted."

Amberly had wandered off soon after seeing the Vladsicle, and now called out from another part of the lab, "Hey, what used to be here?"

Toby, Cujo and I wandered over, followed by the hologram. She was standing next to a strange pedestal that had a glass case with a cushion inside it. "It looks like something important was in this case, but someone broke in and took it or something."

Suddenly the hologram was up in her face, screaming, "_What did you do with it? It was there the whole time – I would have known if someone had taken it! __Where'd you put it, you brat?!_"

Amberly backed up and held up her hands. "I didn't touch the thing, honestly. I was just wondering what was there. No need to freak out, really."

As this confrontation was going on, I saw out of the corner of my eye a couple of computer monitors rewinding security camera footage. They slowed down at a certain point, at which the Vlad hologram's eyes widened and he whispered, "No." I also could have sworn that its face paled, if that was possible for a computer to do.

I went over to the video feed and watched what it was that had Vlad so frightened. It was from a security camera in the lab that was centered right on the display case. A larger ghost wearing knight's armor flew right up to the case and tried to phase his arm through the glass to grab a small object on the cushion. However, it was deflected by a ghost shield that only became visible after it was touched – sneaky, but not enough to turn this ghost away. Instead he unsheathed his sword and swung at the shield. It didn't seem to make much of a difference at first, but then it must have hit something because the ghost shield went down. Impatient at this point, the ghost didn't bother with turning his hand intangible – he simply punched through the glass and took whatever it was in the case. He tucked it away in his armor and then flew back off screen.

Whatever it was that the ghost took, it must have been very valuable because the Vlad hologram was freaking out. He was pacing around the lab, muttering under his breath, "No, no, no! I don't understand – how could he have gotten past my security? The camera was right on him, how could I not have noticed? Some circuitry must be off, _something_ must be wrong! What could possibly have happened? What does it _mean?_ There's only one thing he could possibly want it for …"

Amberly stepped in front of the hologram and tried to get it to do some deep breathing exercises. It took no notice of this and walked right through her, continuing to talk to himself. She looked over at me and shrugged.

Toby had joined me over at the computer monitor and watched the loop. "Hey, this is interesting – look at the date on this. How long ago did you have your accident, Travis?"

I looked at the date and time on the video. I had to admit, I was pretty surprised – the date said that the robbery took place the day after I reopened the portal.

Apparently Vlad was listening to us, because he started muttering, "_Of course!_ Through all of the chaos of everyone rushing to Amity Park he must have taken the time to sneak in. But I still don't understand why he would take it … it's just not _possible_, is it? It doesn't matter, it's mine … I took it first, it's mine!"

Toby took control of the computer we were looking at and zoomed in closer to the ghost. "Hey, look, it's the Fright Night!" My friend was right – it didn't take much to recognize him. Remember the float I was on months ago? As if seeing his picture all over Ghost Defense class textbooks or in Amity Park history books wasn't enough to remember his image, the 20 foot paper maché version of his was enough to scar his face into one's brain.

I pointed at the screen and said, "See if you can get a clear image of what he's stealing." Toby had to zoom in pretty far for a clear picture, but the final result was unimpressive. "A key? All this over a tiny key?"

"Not just _a_ key, my boys, _the_ Key. The key that secured my place as supreme ruler of the ghost zone, the key that in the wrong hands means misery for every ghost in existence! That includes you, boy!" Vlad pointed at me for emphasis. "And before you think, 'so what does it have to do with me? I can live on earth for the rest of my life', think it through – why would he wait so long to strike? Why bring the ghost zone to its knees slowly? Yes, I have cameras in the ghost zone, too, and I've seen it slowly deteriorating. Squads of ghosts invading other ghosts' territories, destroying them, more and more of the smart ones leaving for earth, slowly making the ghost zone nothing but an empty shell. Yes, I saw it all, and I wondered what was going on. I just couldn't piece it together. It was uncharacteristic of any ghost I had ever seen before, but if the Fright Knight is in on it, then there's only one explanation – _he's_ back, and he's taking a different strategy, a smarter one. One that may be even too smart for him – whatever it is, I can assure you that it will eventually affect humans as well."

"Wait, hold on a sec," I said, confused and, admittedly, a little scared. "_Who's_ back?"

"Pariah Dark, son. Pariah Dark."

Suddenly everything stood still. Even Cujo recognized and understood what that name meant. I looked at Toby and Amberly. Amb's eyes were wide and hands were covering her open mouth, jaw having dropped in shock. Toby was pale and shaking, but his eyes were darting all around the room, avoiding contact with any of us. I turned back to the Vlad hologram, nodded and said quietly, "Sorry for intruding on your lab. Thanks for putting up with us, and thanks for the information. We'll go, now."

Pariah Dark. None of us said a word as we got into the Specter Speeder, nor commented when I drove up through the mansion and out that way to go home instead of through the ghost zone, nor made a sound the entire way back to Amity Park. We could hear Vlad saying his name, over and over, even as we pulled back into the old Fenton house to park the Speeder.

Pariah Dark. Everyone in the city knew his name. The time Amity Park was held hostage by him and thrown into the ghost zone was a dark time for the city, and though it didn't last long, it was legendary. It was one of those stories that parents told their children at bedtime, hailing the bravery and the strategy of my great-great grandparents, Jack and Maddie Fenton. When spoken of among those who could understand what happened, though, a solemn tone was taken. Few were alive that could remember that day, and they hardly spoke of it.

Pariah Dark. He was the reason why we even had ghost defense classes in High School, unofficially, anyway. We were always told that it was so we could get a taste of an exciting new career possibility, but everyone knew. It was in case an attack like that ever happened again, so more people were prepared to help out against the legions of ghosts that would roam the streets.

Of course, it wasn't any human that ended up saving the town. It was Danny Phantom. Most people don't like to admit it. According to the bedtime version of the story, Danny was hailed as a hero until everyone realized that no one actually _witnessed_ him saving the town, and he stole the Fenton's battle suit while doing so, throwing him back to being more of a villain than a hero.

Pariah Dark. His name was ringing in my ears as I flopped down onto my bed. This was NOT good. I felt exhaustion creep up on me, even though the day had been tame. Well, relatively so, anyway – I only fought one ghost. Just thinking of his name was tiring, and the thought of having to fight him was painful. I didn't know how I would do it – I read through Pariah Dark's file and from what was written, it sounded like Danny barely defeated him even with half the ghost zone backing him up and the added power of the battle suit (which nearly killed him). I wouldn't have the backing of half the ghost zone, I knew that – half of the ghost zone was gone. I didn't have a battle suit, either. As if that weren't bad enough, Vlad said that he was using a different strategy, which meant that either he had thought about it for a long time or someone else was helping him. Either way, that meant that he had an advantage that I didn't.

I ran my fingers through my hair as I looked up at the ceiling. I don't know how long I was laying there, but it was long enough that I ignored my ghost sense several times and the call down for dinner. I remember Amberly being sent up to my room to get me to come down after my mom called for me several times, but when she came in and saw me she quietly left without a word and went back downstairs. I could faintly hear her say, "He's got a lot on his mind. I think we should just leave him alone."

Dusk hit. All of the sudden I was overwhelmed with the feeling of being confined in my room for too long. I changed to ghost and flew out my window. Higher and higher I flew, until the lights of Amity Park nearly blurred into one big glow. I circled around the blur a few times, trying to clear my head. While flying didn't help with making me forget some of the thoughts that were racing around in my head, it was soothing and it did help me put them in order.

_Everything you do you choose to do_.

The words of my English teacher echoed through my head. I had some choices to make, and I had to make them soon. I may have looked like Danny, I may have been half-ghost just like him, but I wasn't him.

Something big was about to start, and I knew I couldn't do it on my own.

**Squee****! Things are getting serious, now! **

**So … how many people were seeing THAT coming with ****Vlad****? I have to admit, it was way too much fun writing him … he's a ****nutter****, that one. I'm sorry to say that this will be his only appearance, but it was fun while it lasted. **

**Anyway, I've been waiting a long time to get Pariah Dark into the story. Everything is starting to fall into ****place,**** mysteries are starting to reveal themselves. Get ready for some intense stuff …**

**Thanks once more to Anne Camp aka Obi-Quiet for reviewing again, and to everyone else (because I KNOW she's not the only one reading), please review!!! Please ****please****please****please****pleeeeeeeeease**


	13. Chapter 13

**Past Participle**

**Chapter 13**

Amberly and I didn't go to school on Monday. I wasn't going to go no matter what, but I thought it would take Amberly some convincing to ditch as well. As it turned out, she agreed with little hesitation.

Well, technically we _did_ show up on school grounds that morning, but just to find Toby and Brian before we left again. We found Brian, and though he was reluctant to go ("I have to teach today!"), we eventually convinced him to suddenly "become sick" and excuse himself from class. We tried to find Toby, and I thought I saw him at one point, but he disappeared before I could catch up to him.

I flew the three of us to a park on the outskirts of town. Being a Monday morning, we were the only ones there, and being a park, there were few (if any) cameras that could catch me turning from ghost to human. I didn't care if the Vlad AI was taking care of making sure no one would catch me or not, I was going to be more careful from then on.

Brian looked back and forth between Amberly and myself. "You two look like the undead. Tough weekend, or what?" My sister and I glanced at each other. Though I hadn't noticed it before, Brian was right – Amb had dark circles under her eyes and her posture wasn't what it normally was – she was hunching over a little bit, shoulders sagging as if she was carrying something heavy on her shoulders. I had to look just as bad, if not worse. It was amazing how the thought of what was going on was so burdensome.

"There's something going on. Something big. It's why I asked you and Amb to ditch school today."

"Alright, little ghost dude known as Travis, but before you tell me why I've called in sick today, I have something to show you. This was on the front page of the newspaper this morning." Brian fished around in his pocket handed me a ripped and crumbled piece of newsprint. I smoothed it out and looked at the picture. It was a picture of me – specifically, Travis Shadow – flying around last night. It wasn't a very clear picture, but it was obvious that it was a ghost kid that strangely resembled Danny Phantom. I skimmed through the article, but there wasn't anything to get distressed over. "Danny Phantom?" the headline read. "Though previously sighted before, this is the first photograph of the elusive ghost boy", "many claim him to be someone completely different", and "no one knows why he's here" were some of the things said in the article.

Three days ago I would have freaked out over it. The last thing I wanted was the negative press that my great-grandpa had, so I had been very careful to lead ghosts into dark alleyways or empty buildings before fighting them any time I was on patrol or my ghost sense went off. Now, however, it didn't matter to me much. I knew that soon enough it wouldn't matter if I was seen or not.

While I was skimming through the article Amberly was filling Brian in on what happened on Saturday. The visit to Vlads mansion, the key, Pariah Dark. Though Brian was from out of town, even he had gotten to be somewhat familiar with who Dark was and murmured, "Bummer" under his breath when he heard who was loose in the ghost zone.

He and Amberly turned to me when she was finished talking. "So … what's the plan?" Amberly asked.

"We need help. Lots of it. We all know that the city's made preparations in case of another attack, but it's only prepared for an attack like the one last time. If Vlad's right, it's going to be different, and I don't think that we're prepared for anything else."

"So what are you planning on doing?" Brian questioned. "That's a lot of taxpayers' money to go into changing a defense system to adjust to an attack that we know nothing about, just that it won't be the one that is currently in place. Of course, that's taking into account that a 16 year old – ghost or not – can get close enough to the mayor AND convince him to go through with it. It all sounds pretty bogus, man."

"I know, I know. I thought about all of that, and at first I thought I had run into a wall. But then I realized that there is another way. Pariah Dark, or whoever is planning this, is using guerrilla tactics in the ghost zone. He's getting smaller bands of ghosts to slowly and covertly strike different ghosts, and I'm thinking that chances are he's going to move onto the human world soon, so I figured that the best way to fight it is to use guerrilla tactics of our own. We're not going to go to city hall – we're going to start in the community and work our way up."

I spent the next four hours talking with them about what my plan was and getting their input. With our heads put together, we had a plan that was as perfect as we were going to get it. It was difficult, and I knew that even if everything went according to plan it would take a miracle if everyone came out alright, but it was _something_.

We flew back to the school, phasing into the boys bathroom after I made sure everything was clear. Brian saluted me and stuck his head out the door making sure the coast was clear (mostly for Amberly) before leaving. Amberly hesitated for a second and said to me, "You're sure about it?" I nodded. "Even the part with our parents?"

I looked at my black ghost boots and thought for a moment about the most difficult part of the plan. I nodded, making up my mind and said, "I think that to not go through with it would be a mistake. All I need is for the right opportunity to come knocking."

* * *

For the last couple hours of school I went to class, acting perfectly normal except for the one part where I had to leave for a sec to take care of a ghost, which I suppose had become the new standard for normalcy in my life, so yeah, normal.

When the final bell rang I looked for Todd. Remember him? He was the captain of the school's advanced ghost defense class. I found him and pulled him into an empty classroom.

"Hey Travis, where have you been?"

I shrugged. "Around. Things are busy, ya know?"

Todd nodded. "No kidding … ever since that ghost breakout a few months ago things have been a little more hectic than normal, haven't they? But it's cool, ya know, it's making the ghost squads pay more attention to us High Schoolers. My dad talked to one of the leaders of squadron C and I might be able to get an internship this summer! All I have to do is keep up my grades and work hard at the Ghost Defense class and they may even reserve a spot for me on this new squad I've been hearing rumors about. With all the ghosts lately they have to set up a new one, and it's going to be nothing but us younger kids. Hey, if you can get your grades up I bet you'd get a spot in no problem, being a Fenton and all!"

I forgot there was a reason why this kid was captain. He had more enthusiasm for ghost hunting than anyone I had ever met, including my parents.

"Yeah … well, I'll keep that in mind. Actually, Todd, what I was going to ask you about was if you'd be interested in starting a club."

"A club?"

"Yeah, you know, like photography club or recycling club … you know, a club."

"You want me to start a recycling club?" I also forgot how slow Todd was. He was more my great-great Grandpa Jack's relative than me.

I sighed and rubbed my temples. "No, not a recycling club. A ghost fighting club."

He brightened up at that. "Well, yeah, sure! But … why do you want me to start it?"

I shook my head. "I would do it myself, but I can't. I don't have good enough grades to get approval, and even if I did, I have this job that would keep me from being able to run it consistently."

"Well … yeah, it sounds fun! But … why? I mean, we have the ghost defense classes."

Ooh … I hadn't thought of that question – I just assumed he'd agree. I bit my lip and thought quickly. "Well, you know … there's only so much that we can do in the ghost defense class. I just thought that it would be a good idea if there are more chances to learn more about ghost warfare or whatever. I mean, you know a lot about ghost defense, and I've seen you reading up on ghost offense, too, and I figured that you'd be perfect for the job."

Todd nodded, satisfied with the answer I gave him. "Well, sounds good. I'll start up on that. You'll come to some meetings though, right?"

I shrugged. "Sure, yeah, that sounds fine."

I started to leave but he stopped me, "No, seriously Travis. I've seen what your grades are like – you've got the top marks in our Ghost Defense class. Even if you've been failing in your other classes, you've broken records in performance in that one. Whatever your 'job' is, it's been amazing for your ghost defense. You need to come in once in a while to _teach_."

I didn't think about that before, but it made sense – now that I was spending more time ghost fighting than anything else, I was doing better than anyone in that area. I nodded. "You know what … I think that's a good idea. Thanks for inviting me, Todd."

"Travis, I should be the one thanking you."

I left, relieved that things went smoothly. It was only one small group of kids in one high school, but it was something. I could teach them things that I had learned on my own, maybe share some of the knowledge I had gotten from the information chip. I wouldn't tell them what they were getting into, but at least they would be more informed about ghosts than even the ghost squads. Ideally the idea of a ghost defense/offence club could spread to the other high schools, but that was getting my hopes too high. Either way, part one of my plan was covered.

Part two was covered by Brian – he contacted the computer club and got them to team up with the community service club to work on the city's ghost defenses. The community service would work on raising money to buy new equipment for areas of the city that were lacking and the computer club would work on upgrading the current systems. He had no problem with convincing the presidents of either clubs to go through with it.

Part three was simple – all Amberly had to do at the moment was find Toby and fill him in. She called me up after looking for him. "Sorry, Travis, it's not as simple as we thought. I don't know if he's avoiding me or not, but I can't find him _anywhere_. He's not answering any of my calls, either."

I wasn't happy, but I replied, "That's fine. We need to start work on part four as soon as possible – it would be easier with him, but he's been there to back me up before, I'm sure he'll show up eventually."

Part four was one of the harder parts – not _the_ hardest, but almost. I knew that a lot of ghosts were scared. They should have been, anyway, if they had their head on straight. Last time Pariah Dark attacked many of Danny's enemies teamed up with him to fight against Dark, so I was hoping that they'd pull through again. My goal for going on patrol from that point on was to not do the usual beat them up then shove them in the thermos thing, but instead try to reason with them and get them on my side. It probably wouldn't keep them from beating me up or destroying Amity Park, but it was worth a try. It would take time, of course, and we probably didn't have any time to spare, but there wasn't much I could do short of actually going into the ghost zone and catching them all in one big net, which wasn't going to happen.

Brian's role in this part of the plan was to stock up in bandages for me.

* * *

When a person says, "All I need is for the right opportunity to come knocking", it means that they don't actually mean that they want to go through with whatever it is they claim they want to do. If someone really wants something, they will go out and get it, otherwise they either aren't going to recognize opportunity knocking or they'll just ignore it, meaning that unless opportunity does, in fact, personify itself and actually knocks on your front door, you're going to be totally oblivious to missed chances.

Which was my case exactly, down to opportunity knocking on my front door.

The hardest part about my plan was telling my parents what was going on, and I knew that if I was going to tell them the truth, I had to tell them the _whole_ truth. I realized on my night flying above the city they could be one of the greatest aides in executing my plan the way it needed to – they were great at organizing large groups of people and my dad, being a descendant of Danny himself, could actually possibly be good at giving Pariah Dark a challenge.

So all I was waiting for was the right moment to tell them. A week went by and almost everything else was going just fine – Todd had organized the club quickly and recruited several members almost immediately, ghost defense systems were being upgraded so fast it was news-worthy, and I had even been able to form a truce with a few ghosts (though in the process Brian made very good use of the bandages). The only problem was that we hardly saw Toby – he wasn't going on patrol anymore and he was avoiding us. I saw him in class, but as soon as the bell rang he seemed to disappear. I won't deny it – I was angry with him, but it wasn't something that could be helped. I simply didn't have the time between everything else to track him down and slap some sense into him.

Anyway, back to the right moment. I had waited and waited for a good time to tell my parents, but more recently their favorite topic of conversation had been debating and speculating about just who the ghost kid – my superhero alter ego – was, and why they hadn't been able to take him down yet. Can you say, "Awkward"?

One night as the dinner conversation had unknowingly turned to me yet again, a knock came on our front door. I had already put my fork down and gotten up because my ghost sense went off only a few seconds before, so I went to go get it.

I opened the door and was surprised to see a little ghost girl in overalls and pigtails floating there. It was odd … usually ghosts don't take the courtesy of knocking on the door. She didn't look more than seven years old, but for all I knew she could have been a ghost for several decades. She looked up as fiercely as she could at me, but something wasn't right. Her facial expression was trying to show tough, but her eyes were shiny with tears not yet shed and her chin was quivering.

"Is everything all right?" I asked quietly.

She jutted out her lower lip and said in a shaky voice, "Of course everything's all right! I'm Box Lunch, so … b … b… beware!" She couldn't keep herself composed for very long and broke out sobbing by the last word.

I heard the familiar sound of a couple of ectoplasmic guns charging from my left. Mom and dad were in the doorway to the kitchen, aiming their weapons at Lunch Box. "Step away from the ghost, Travis, we've got her!" my mom warned.

I tried shaking my head and telling them to put their weapons down, but it was too late. They were already tensing their hands up, getting ready to shoot.

Time slowed down as I finally realized that opportunity had come. As if in slow motion I saw my parents' fingers pull the trigger, the ecto starting to leave the barrels, and Box Lunch trying to get out of the way. Opportunity's moment had come – though it wasn't ideal – and I did the first thing I could possibly do to react to the weapons aimed at the ghost in front of me.

I put a shield up.

The ectoplasmic shield I set up around myself and the girl, who had quickly rushed behind me and attached herself to my leg for protection, absorbed the blasts with ease. When the firing stopped I looked up and cautiously let it down. My parents were shocked. Leah and Amberly had gotten up and were standing behind them, Leah sharing the same look of shock as my parents and Amberly looking worried, biting her lower lip. She mouthed to me, "You can still make up an excuse." I shook my head and mouthed back, "I know".

The guns charged again. Amberly screamed at my parents to not shoot, but my dad ignored her and said, "I don't know what just happened, but clearly it has something to do with that little floating freak. Back away, Travis, and we can take care of her." Box Lunch whimpered and clung to my leg tighter.

Dad shot at her again – not directly at her as to avoid hurting me in the process, but to the side to try and scare her off. Again I set up a shield, this time making it very clear that _I _was the one setting it up, and again my parents looked shocked and confused. "What … what have you done with our son?"

"Mom, Dad!" I shouted. "Put your guns down for a second and just chill!"

Again, they didn't listen. This time they both fired a warning shot, one aimed more toward Box Lunch and, shockingly, one toward me, and for the third time I set up a shield. I wasn't in my ghost form, so setting up a shield strong enough to deflect the shots was tiring … tiring enough to really piss me off. I pointed a glowing green hand at them.

"Mom … Dad … if you so much as raise another finger I swear I will destroy those weapons right now. You're WAY too trigger happy for your own good. Now let me talk to Box Lunch here and then I'll explain things, kapeesh?"

They looked from my hand to my face to Box Lunch, who was so frightened that she was bawling into my pant leg and soaking it through. Amberly stepped in front of them, gently lifted their weapons out of their hands and said quietly, "Please, just listen to Travis. I know what's going on, and it's okay. Just give him a couple minutes, alright?"

They were mad, confused, horrified, and shocked at the same time. They kept opening and closing their mouths as if they were about to say something but then changed their minds. Figuring that it would probably take a while for them to come around, I went ahead and picked Box Lunch up and carried her over to the couch in the front room there, sitting down and placing her next to me.

"I'm sorry about my parents. They don't understand … well, a lot of stuff. I'm assuming you're here for me, right?"

She sniffled. "Are you the ghost kid? Well, not the first halfa, but, you know, the one that everyone keeps talking about?"

I glanced over at my family, who had moved within listening range. I drew in a deep breath and said, "Yes, that's me."

She continued, "Everyone's talking about you. They keep on saying that you're like a reincarnation of Danny Phantom and that you'll save us, all of us … including … including my mommy and daddy." She started bawling again and threw her arms around my neck, nearly choking me. I hesitantly patted her back.

"Shh … it's okay … you're safe here. Who is your mommy and daddy?"

She hiccupped. "You've seen them lots of times before – my daddy is the Box Ghost and my mommy is a Lunch Lady." I looked over at Amberly and our eyes twitched. She mouthed out, "Box … Lunch … makes sense, anyway." I shuddered and mouthed back, "Still, she's not on file. It's very weird." I realized that it would be possible for her to have been born after Danny put away the time capsule, but it didn't keep me from being surprised that she wasn't on the information disk.

Poor little Box Lunch kept crying for several minutes. When she finally calmed down I asked, "Did … did _he_ take them?" She nodded. "But he didn't take you?" She shook her head.

"No, mommy and daddy told me to fly away and go as far away as I could. So I did, and I thought that I'd be flying forever and ever but then this one guy stopped me and he was weird. He took me back to his house and it had all these clocks everywhere and he kept on getting older and older until he looked like he was six thousand years old and then all of the sudden he'd get younger and younger again until he was a baby and then he'd get older and older all over again. He was really nice to me but he didn't let me stay at his house long and told me that he really couldn't do a lot and that he needed me to take a message to you. So he gave me a letter and told me to get it to you right away but when I was trying to find the portal … they found me." She stopped at this point and huddled up to me, her nervous body shaking with fear.

"Who? Who found you?"

She started crying again just a little bit. "The scary men that did all this. The man that calls himself king and the vampire with blue fire for hair."

I was confused. I assumed that the first ghost was Pariah Dark, but who was the second ghost she was talking about?

"I was so scared … I thought they were going to hurt me but then the vampire found the letter and read it. I think it made him happy because he laughed, but it wasn't a funny or happy laugh. He gave it back to me and then wrote another letter and gave it to me, telling me to give it to you, too." She reached in her front pocket of her overalls and gave me an envelope addressed to Travis Shadow and a familiar old-looking brown piece of rolled-up paper. "I'm scared … I don't know where to go and I want my mommy and daddy. Are you going to save us, just like Danny Phantom did? I've heard some people say that you're trying to talk them into fighting with you. Oh, please, please do something."

I patted her head. "Don't worry. I'm doing as much as I can." Amberly came over and gave the little girl a hug, whispering words of comfort in her ear.

After a couple of minutes I told her, "Listen, I'd love to keep you here, but I don't know how safe it's going to be. Is there a place like … umm … the old Nasty Burger that you can stay at?"

Box Lunch nodded but said, "I don't want to go by myself. Will you come with me?"

I shook my head. "Sorry, I have to stay here and take care of some things. But … do you like dogs?" She nodded. "Good, because I have the perfect friend to keep you company." I put a couple of fingers in my mouth and whistled. I heard some scrambling upstairs in my room and four little feet scrambling to get down the staircase as quickly as possible. I watched with amusement as Cujo came running down but slid to a complete stop when he saw my parents and older sister and went invisible instantly. I was so proud – that was exactly what I trained him to do, though he could have been a little quicker in his reaction time.

I rolled my eyes and said, "It's okay, boy, come here, it's okay, they're good people now."

It took a couple of seconds, but he cautiously obeyed me and became visible again, treading carefully around my family before coming around to the couch and jumping up in my lap. I saw my mom reaching for her holster slowly but I carefully aimed an ectoplasmic-charged finger at it and blew it up.

"I told you, I'll explain everything to you like a decent person, but you have to be _patient_" I insisted. She nodded quickly and took a step back.

I addressed Cujo, "Now listen carefully, this is Box Lunch and she's a _very_ important person. You guys are going to go to the old part of town and hide there, okay? And you're going to protect her, got that?"

Cujo barked cheerfully and licked my face. I laughed and scratched behind his ears. "That's a good dog … now go, and make sure you stay invisible until you get there." Cujo hopped off of my lap and headed toward the door. Amberly gave Box Lunch one last hug before nodding at her to follow the dog. They both phased through the door and I went over to the window to make sure they went invisible before they went very far. When I couldn't see them any more I turned around and looked at my family.

Silence ensued. I looked back and forth from mom to dad to Leah and back again, all of whom were staring at me with a wide variety of expressions. "Well. At the risk of this getting too awkward, what do you say we sit down and I explain what just happened, hmm?" The three nodded dumbly and Amberly helped them to the couch to sit down.

I paced the floor, thinking of how to start this. "Hmm … before I say anything about everything that has to do with what just happened, let's start with a little philosophical discussion. What do you think about the nature of good and evil in this world?"

**Thanks SO MUCH to everyone who reviewed! You have no idea how much I appreciate it ... and please, as always, tell me where I can improve. The next few chapters are going to be really intense, so I need to know where I can improve now so that they'll be a good read. Thank you!**


	14. Chapter 14

**Past Participle**

**Chapter 14**

_"What do you think about the nature of good and evil in this world?"_

My parents and older sister tilted their heads to the side in confusion. Even Amberly furrowed her eyebrows together and mouthed to me, "What are you _doing?_" I replied softly to her, "You'll see. Can you go get the camera? You know, the one with _the video_?" My little sister nodded and went upstairs.

I waited for an answer from the rest of my family until Leah finally said, "Is this some sort of trick question? Are you … whoever you are … evil, or something?"

I shook my head. "No and no. I seriously want to talk about this with you guys so you can understand what I'm going to get at. Just … pretend that the last ten minutes didn't happen. Please, just ignore that I did anything out of the ordinary. I'm still your son and brother, you have to believe me, and I promise that I'll explain everything. So … back to the question. What would you say?"

My mom looked at my face, searching every inch of it, probably for deception. She finally closed her eyes and breathed out, "Oh my ... it ... it is you. Travis, what's happening?"

I shook my head. "Not yet. I need you to answer my question."

My mom cleared her throat, taken aback by my answer (or, rather, refusal to answer) and said, "Well, I … I suppose it depends on how you want to talk about it. In the grand scheme of things I would say that there's a balance of good and evil in everything. No one thing can be purely evil and no one thing can be purely good, and when everything is tallied up, there's an equal balance of both in the universe."

Dad interrupted, "But if you're going to bring ghosts into it, which is what I'm sure you're getting at, it's fairly clear: ghosts are evil and humans are good."

I nodded. "I was going to get to ghosts, yes, but isn't what you just said a direct contradiction to what mom said?"

My parents looked at each other, confused. Mom looked at me and said, "But with ghosts it's a completely different case. What I said I hold to 100, but your father is also right – all ghosts are evil. I have never in my years on the ghost squad seen a single good deed done by a ghost."

I kept pacing the room as I said, "Yeah, okay, but that's not the contradiction that I was talking about. Dad said that humans are good and ghosts are evil. Mom, if there's a balance of good and evil in the universe, then you're telling me that all humans are 100 good because all ghosts are evil, which would then be contradicting _yourself _because you said that no one thing is purely good."

My mom folded her hands together and rested her chin on them, thinking. I felt myself doing a little happy dance inside – if I had my mom thinking, then the battle was half-won.

Dad piped up after thinking a bit himself. "But ghosts aren't _natural_. They don't come from this world."

I shook my head and quickly ran to the base of the stairs, calling up, "Amb, could you also bring down the chip and a laptop?" She called back an affirmative and I went back to the front room to answer my dad, "You're both wrong and right. Ghosts are a _very_ natural part of this world, but they don't come from here. See, when a person dies they become a ghost and go to the ghost zone. I'm sure you're vaguely familiar with the ghost zone – after all, the entire city of Amity Park was held hostage there for a few hours, correct?" Everyone nodded and I said, "That's where ghosts go, but there are portals connecting the ghost zone to the human world in a way that makes one's existence rely on the other, and that also makes it easy for the ghosts to come and go as they please. It's just as easy for humans to do the same, if they wanted, though I'd strongly advise against it. So you see, ghosts are a part of this world, and influence the balance of good and evil just as much as humans do."

I let what I said sink in a little bit, waiting for any of the three to respond. Amberly came back down and handed the items to me. I pulled up one of the side tables in front of the three eldest in my family and set up the laptop and camera while waiting for a response. Finally Leah said, "So what you're telling us is that … there are good ghosts? Well, _mostly_ good ghosts to balance out the evil ghosts, just as there are _mostly _good humans? AND that there are some right in between?"

I smiled. "Exactly. Does it make sense? I mean, let's just say for this conversation's sake that humans are inherently good and ghosts are inherently evil. But, as we've established, it's impossible to say that all humans are mostly good and all ghosts are mostly bad, because we know that throughout history there have been some very very evil humans. Meaning that in order to balance that out, there has to be some very very good ghosts. I'm not saying that ghosts are 'born' bad and humans 'good', or that there's a ghost to balance out the levels of good and evil in every human, but … well, am I making any sense at all?."

Leah nodded right away, though my parents stared at the floor while they were chewing on the idea.

Finally my dad looked up and said, "You know, I always knew you were a smart kid, but this is the most intelligently I think I've ever heard you speak. What you've said makes sense, but it's kind of a stretch. Why is it so important for you to convince us that there are good ghosts, even though we haven't seen any? I mean, you just threw a bunch of theories at us that no one has ever even heard of before, recounted information about ghosts and the ghost zone that I've never seen documented, and frankly it sounds like a lot of bull."

"It's important because I need you to keep an open mind. There's a lot of stuff that I need to tell you, and whether you trust me or not can be the difference between success and failure. Will you try to keep an open mind?"

It took another minute or so, but finally, one by one, Leah, Mom and Dad nodded.

I breathed out a sigh of relief. "Good. Now, to start at the very beginning would be going pretty far back … all the way back to the parade. Remember how I left and no one could find me? It was because I was out wandering around the old part of town. Before you say anything, yes, it was a dumb idea, I had no idea what radiation could be floating around, blah blah blah. Anyway, I found the old Fenton house and explored it a little. I found a box in great-grandpa Danny's room – it was a time capsule hidden in his wall. I opened it up and found a yearbook, a picture of Danny and Sam and Tucker, this camera (I pointed to the camera I had set up on the table), and a disk with some data on it that the three of them compiled. There's a video on the camera that's very important, and this is the first part where I need you to keep an open mind, okay?"

They nodded as I grabbed the camera and started to play the video. It was a squeeze as the three crowded around me to watch the little screen, but they were still able to see everything. When the video was over, Leah fainted. Figured.

After reviving my older sister, we talked about Danny for a while. The video was a lot to take in – I remembered my reaction to the first time I saw it. Mom and Dad were amazed that Danny Phantom was actually our ancestor, and that he was protecting the town the whole time. It was a lot to swallow, but they actually ended up accepting it happily.

"After I saw the video, I freaked out a bit. I didn't want to go back to the parade or anything, so I ran downstairs to check out the ghost portal. I had a bit of an accident, though … I fell down the stairs halfway there and ended up _inside_ the portal. When I tried getting up, I pushed something. I still don't know what it was I pressed, but it shocked me, though I don't know what with. Whatever it was, it ended up altering my genetic structure or half-killing me or something, because when I woke up I looked like … well, this."

Taking the leap of faith, I thought about changing to my ghost form. I could see some white hair hanging in front of my face and could feel myself getting colder and lighter. I hovered a couple inches off the ground and smiled weakly at my family. Their eyes were HUGE with amazement and I heard one of them whisper, "Just like Danny …"

I rubbed the back of my neck. "So … is it okay if you have a half-ghost as a son and brother?"

My mom had tears in her eyes, though she was smiling. "Of course, Travis. Are you the ghost kid that's been seen around town?" I nodded. "And … have you been fighting and catching ghosts, just like Danny did?" I nodded again. She got up and pulled me into a hug. "Oh, honey, why didn't you tell us months ago?"

I pulled away from her bear hug and answered, "Well, think about it. You guys are so gung-ho about ghost fighting that I figured that if I told you you'd do weird experiments on me or maybe disown me because a ghost in the Fenton family just wouldn't _work_. I didn't like it anyway … I wasn't going to tell anyone, but Amb found out right away and then my teacher, Brian, saw me change into a ghost in my first fight, and then Toby found out after that. That's all … well, that I know of, anyway. I've tried to keep a really low profile." I opted not to tell them about the broken AI that was currently hanging my own secret over my head, unsure if that part really mattered.

My dad stood up and joined my mom's side. "We're sorry … I didn't think about it that way before, but I guess that it was a difficult situation for you to be in. Still, you're still our son and because of that we'd accept you no matter what happened."

"Thanks, dad. Oh, and to answer your question that you asked a while ago – how I know everything that I do – it all has to do with the disk I found." Not bothering to change back human, I floated over to the laptop and got the data chip ready to show my family. I pulled up a few random windows and explained to them that it was nothing but information that Danny got while fighting ghosts. Mom and Dad were fascinated with the information on the chip and would have looked through it for hours if Leah didn't politely stop them and asked me to continue on.

I told them about everything I thought was important – my first battle, going into the ghost zone for the first time, humans in the ghost zone, habits of ghosts I had noticed, heck, I even told them I had a superhero name, even though there wasn't much use for it as of yet. They nodded intermittently, taking it all in. Once in a while they would ask a question, but for the most part it was just me talking for the longest time.

When I finished they all sat in silence. Dad broke the silence by finally saying, "All this time … there was _so much_ about ghosts, about … about your _life_ that we were blind to. How could we have not seen any of it?"

No one answered – no verbal reply was needed. All that was needed to open their eyes was an open mind. No one thanked me for that, but it was understood.

Mom got up and took a turn at pacing the floor. "You said that you didn't want to tell anyone about your second identity … and you certainly did do a good job of keeping it a secret for so long. Why the sudden change of heart?"

Through all of my explanations I carefully avoided telling them about anything that had to do with Pariah Dark. I ran my fingers through my hair and stared at the ceiling thoughtfully, took in a deep breath and started explaining it to them.

"After my first fight with Skulker, I realized that as much as I hated being different, I had to accept it as a part of me. As such, I couldn't ignore my powers – they're useful and I had to improve on them. I went to the old Fenton house again and practiced until I got the hang of some of them. While I was there, I got a letter. I didn't know who it was from at the time, but I do now – it's from Pariah Dark and … someone else. It was really creepy, but it just seemed so out there that I didn't take it seriously. At least, not until I got another one. Both of the letters were telling me the same thing, and I'm sure that the letter Box Lunch gave me will be the same, but I was too dense to see it – they were gloating, doing victory dances over the fact that they could and eventually did destroy the ghost zone. Not literally, of course, but these two ghosts have run out all the decent ghosts, making them weak and unable to do anything. The reason why I've told you everything I have is because I need your help. It's fairly obvious that they're going to move onto the human world, and I can't do this on my own, not like Danny."

When I finally looked at everyone they were all lost in their own thoughts. Dad had gotten up and was staring out the window, Leah was resting her elbows on her knees and her face in her hands, and mom was sitting on the floor, having lost the ability to support herself when she heard the name, staring off into space.

Leah looked up at me. "You're sure it's Pariah Dark?"

I nodded. "Last week Amb, Toby and I went to the Masters Mansion in Wisconson. We didn't think that we'd really find anything there, not anything important, but as it turns out we found out something much more important than anything we'd ever seen before. We saw the Fright Night steal a key … a key that released Pariah Dark. He's back."

"Who's this other ghost that you keep mentioning? The one working with Pariah Dark?"

I looked away. "I … I don't know. This is why I need your help – I don't know what I'm up against."

I felt a hand rest on my shoulder. I looked up and saw my dad's face. "Whatever it is, we're here for you. What is it you need?"

I smiled weakly, happy for my parents' support, then switched to leader mode. "Mom, Dad, you two are a couple of the most influential people in all of Amity Park. Right now I've organized a few things to help out when an attack does come, but what I've done isn't going to be enough. The ghost defense department has been thinking of adding a new ghost squad, right? That's going to have to increase to at least another two, and you're going to have to put them together as soon as possible. I know it's going to be hard to find enough people that are trained well enough to qualify, but it's important that even if you can't find them, you train people so that they can be on a squad. Extra training is going to be needed for all the other squads as well. I'll make a copy of the information chip for you to use, because I'm positive it'll be a huge help to you. Also … well, I know that this isn't exactly your area of expertise, but we're going to need some help in PR, which is mainly where your reputation is going to help. I don't think Travis Shadow can avoid major press for much longer now, and if it comes down to it, I may even have to address the town myself. I'm not quite ready for everyone to know that Shadow and Fenton are the same person yet, so I'm going to need you guys to start to introduce the idea of good ghosts being out there. There are some other ghosts that will be our allies, at least through this, but don't worry about them, I've got it taken care of.

"Leah, I know that I'm going to be asking a lot of you, but I need you to be here as often as possible as our home base operator. I'll grab some of the equipment from the op center in the old Fenton center and bring it here – I know it's old and seems outdated, but I've poked around a few of the machines and they work, and a lot of them were built for and as a result of a big attack anyway, so they're going to be perfect. I know you're busy with college, but … well, what I figure is that if this doesn't work, there's not going to be a college to go back to."

I looked eagerly at my family members, hoping that they didn't mind taking orders from me, but they just nodded the entire time and agreed to do whatever I said. For the first time since I learned Pariah Dark was free, I actually felt like there was going to be a chance of getting through this. Mom, dad, and Leah all got up and left the room, starting on their tasks right away. Amberly and I were left in the room by ourselves. I changed back from ghost to human and collapsed on the couch.

Amberly sat down next to me and grinned. Getting annoyed of her staring at me with that goofy grin, I finally asked, "Okay, what's with the goofy smile?"

She laughed out loud and replied, "That was INTENSE! And you did it! I was so nervous that telling mom and dad would just be a mess and they'd either blow you to bits or ground the both of us for life, but … _wow_. They just took it all in, and you sounded so _smart_, too! I mean seriously, Trav, what happened? Finally stop by the brain store and pick one up? Holy cow … this might actually just work. So … what do the letters say?"

"Oh yeah. I nearly forgot about them. One sec." I pulled the envelope and the scroll out of my pocket. I held one in each hand and stared at them. "I don't know which one to read first … I know that the scroll is just going to be a bunch of vague, mysterious gloating, which is going to put a damper on my mood, and as for the envelope … well, that could be anything, though there's a 90 chance that it's going to put a damper on my mood as well."

Amberly shrugged. "I guess get the gloating done with first."

I unrolled the scroll and read it out loud.

_"__Halfa__ –_

_A little bird told us that you already found out one of our identities. Wonderful! It adds so much more depth to our __plan,__ doesn't it? As for me … well, we saw the note that this wonderful little child is delivering to you, so it's only a matter of __**time**__until you discover who I am. Of course, by then it'll be too late for you to do anything_

_Aren't puns wonderful?__"_

I looked back up at Amberly, who looked just as confused as I felt. It was, in fact, gloating, but I didn't get the pun. Was it on the word "time"? If it was, it wasn't a very good pun. Unless, of course, I needed to read the other letter first …

Not unexpectedly, the seal on the back was already broken. I slid the slightly-crumpled paper out and read the message on that out loud as well.

_"Box Lunch__** is**__ on your files._

_-CW"_

**Yeah, like that's hard to figure out. Not much of a cliffhanger, but it's a good place to leave off. **

**As always, HUGE thanks to everyone who's been reviewing (I really can't thank you enough!), and as always, don't be afraid to speak up if there's something that you don't like about the chapter … be even less afraid to speak up if there's something you DO like! **


	15. Chapter 15

**Past Participle**

**Chapter 15**

_"Box Lunch__** is**__ on your files._

_-CW"_

What. The. Heck. Amberly and I went through the same motions of looking at each other with confused faces.

"Where's the pun again?" Amb asked. I shook my head.

"I have no idea … do you have any idea who 'CW' is?" Amberly took her turn at shaking her head. I continued, "What's more, whoever this is writes even creepier letters than Dark and whoever this vampire guy is. How'd they know that I have files on ghosts, and that I wouldn't think that Box Lunch is on them? Whoever it is either knows me even better than I know myself, or can see the future. Either way, highly creepy."

"Agreed."

"Well, I guess that the only thing to do now is to look through the ghost files … _yet again_." I grudgingly turned to the laptop and opened the ghost files.

Even though it was already past dinner time and getting well into dark when the whole thing started, Amberly went in and out of the house several times during the night.

The first time she came back was at 8:06 after she finished going out and checking up on Brian and getting communication devices to everyone that channeled back to our house so Leah could operate everything smoothly. She found me still in the living room, speaking useless threats to my computer. She shoved me over a bit so she could look at it. "Still nothing?" I shook my head.

"I've looked through this for the past two hours, and I've found NOTHING. Nothing! I can't even find a hint of a romance between the Box Ghost and the Lunch Lady."

"Do you think … maybe the file that said 'Do not open'?"

Again I shook my head. "No, that's Technus. He has another file on here with his profile - if I open it up he'll be set loose on the internet, which is the LAST thing that I want to have happen."

She took control of the mouse and went to the main menu, skimming through that. After going through that she went back up to the top and pointed to a file there. "Alternate Dimension … have you looked through there?"

I laughed. "Are you kidding? First of all, that file is absolutely GIGANTIC. I've _never_ wanted to look through that monstrosity. Secondly, it's about an alternate dimension. Why the heck should I even _care_ about an alternate dimension? I mean, I know that there's portals everywhere to the Ghost Zone, which I suppose could be considered a _different_ dimension, but it's still part of this timeline or whatever, so alternate realities are believable, I suppose, but how the heck would I get to one? I don't know, therefore, why should I care? … Oh."

During my rant Amberly opened up the file and found Box Lunch's file within seconds. "I guess the creep was right … you do have Box Lunch on your files."

I shoved my way back in front of the computer, grabbing the mouse out of her hand. I read through Box Lunch's file, not finding anything extremely informative or helpful to my current situation. I slumped back in my seat and sighed. "Why does any of this matter? Unless Box Lunch is in on it, which I highly doubt, this is worthless to me. If anything, I'm just more confused … if Box Lunch isn't supposed to be a part of this dimension, then why was she here?"

Amberly rolled her eyes. "Even though this 'CW' is a creep, they're obviously onto something. If you say that you haven't looked through these files, then they're probably trying to get you to look through them. Telling you Box Lunch is there is probably only a hint. And, who knows about her – maybe some things are just meant to be, no matter what timeline or dimension you're in. I'm going to go out again on patrol – you stay here and look for anything that'll help."

She got up and went out the door. I tried to stop her and tell her that I was supposed to be the one giving orders, but she was gone before I could even fit in a word. I muttered only half-meaningful threats against her under my breath for leaving me to go through at least another couple of hours of computer files while she went out and stretched her legs.

The second time Amberly came back was at 9:37 after going on patrol for a little bit. She found me staring blankly at the computer screen. She waved her hand in front of my face and I looked slowly up at her. Her facial features softened up and she asked what was wrong, commenting on my pale face. Finding that my voice had left me, I simply pointed to the computer. She looked at the picture of the ghost on the screen and furrowed her eyebrows together.

"Is that CW?" she asked.

I shook my head and hoarsely said, "I found CW half an hour ago. It stands for Clockwork. It was hard to find his profile because he exists out of time, and therefore his profile belongs in neither the alternate dimension file nor the real world folders."

"Oookay … well then who is that? Hold on a sec … he has blue fire for hair and vampire teeth. Is this the other ghost Box Lunch was talking about?"

I nodded.

"Who is he?" she asked again.

I couldn't say his name the first couple of times I tried to get it out. I'm not going to deny it, I was scared. If it were either just him or just Pariah Dark the situation would have been bad enough, but with these two working together …

"Travis, who is he?" Amberly repeated a third time, panic edging into her voice.

"His … his name is Dan Phantom." I leaned back on the sofa. "Dan Phantom …"

Amberly was very visibly confused. "I've never heard of him. Is he really that bad?"

I nodded. "Amberly … I don't think there's a chance of winning. I think … I think we're all gonna _die_."

Amberly took the computer and read through his profile. When she was done she stood up without a word, looked at me, looked back towards the kitchen where Mom and Dad were making phone calls and sorting through stacks of documents they got from the Ghost Defense Department, and looked out the window. She calmly walked over to the door, opened it up, and stepped outside. Just before she closed the door she looked back at me. There was fear in her eyes that I'm sure reflected my own.

When she shut the door Mom called to me from the dining table asking me who left.

"Amberly … she needed to get some fresh air. She'll be back, don't worry."

The third time Amberly came back I was gone.

I didn't care that it was midnight and that the ghost zone was empty except for my two greatest enemies and their goons, I needed to see Clockwork. According to his profile he was an ally, though not necessarily a willing or even helpful one. However, he played a key role in defeating Dan Phantom the first time, so I assumed that he'd help again.

I have to admit, my reasons for visiting weren't entirely rational. I was angry – Dan Phantom was supposed to be trapped in a Thermos underneath Clockwork's care, so if Dan was free then it was his fault for not taking better care of the Thermos and for not re-capturing him.

I was so blinded by my anger and so caught up in looking at the map to see how fast I could get to Clockwork's place that I literally flew into someone. Immediately I went on my guard and held up two glowing green fists.

When I saw who it was, however, I lowered them, confused.

"Toby?"

My best friend was _floating_ in front of me, wearing some sort of strange suit. It was really bulky and didn't look like he could move very well in it.

"Toby, what are you doing here? Where have you been? Have you been avoiding us? What are you wearing? Don't you know that the ghost zone is extremely dangerous? Listen, there's something going on that you really need to know about …"

He answered me by slamming his fist into my gut.

Toby had punched me hard enough that not only did I lose all the air in my lungs, but I flew back several dozen feet. Recollecting myself as quickly as possible, I slowed down and took a couple of deep breaths and looked up, only to get a foot to the face. This time, I didn't even have recovery time before Toby was behind me, shoving me forward and into a rock. He was _fast_. Whatever it was he was wearing, it made him like some sort of Superman. I can't remember how long he was beating me up for – I took several blows to the head – but finally after I was too beat up to even move without pain shooting through my body he grabbed the front of my suit and held me really close to his face.

I half expected him to have malice in his eyes, or maybe even different colored eyes, indicating that a ghost was controlling him. Instead, there was fear. Pure fear.

"Travis … help me …" he said quietly, as if someone were overhearing us.

Before I could respond, he suddenly winced in pain and threw me to the side.

It took him a moment to recover from … whatever it was that caused him pain, so I turned invisible and intangible and started floating further away from him. When I was sure that I was at a safe distance, I called out to him, "Toby … what's going on?"

Toby took a few deep breaths and said to my general direction, "I'm sorry, Travis. If I don't hurt you, they'll hurt me. I'm sorry …" With that, an eyepiece not unlike the one that Skulker used to try and find me in our first battle popped up, and all of the sudden Toby was not just looking in my general direction, but he was actually looking _at_ me. I flew to the side a bit and double checked that I was still invisible. I was, but his eyes were still following me.

'What the …' I started thinking, surprised that he was able to see me, but I couldn't finish my thought as Toby started coming after me again.

Ditching the invisibility (but still staying intangible), I watched him come closer and closer …

And was slammed back into another floating island.

Suddenly I started losing hope – if that suit could hurt me when I was intangible, I had no idea how to get out of this situation. I didn't want to hurt my friend, but it started looking like I had to.

Not taking the chance of giving it a second thought, I held up a hand and blasted Toby with an ectoplasmic beam. I thought that it would surprise him and give me an opportunity to get away or immobilize him, but instead he _caught _the beam and shot it back at me. I set up a shield – the strongest one I could – and was able to avoid getting hurt, but I could actually physically feel the beam hit the shield. Normally the only effect setting up a shield had on me was that it drained a little bit of my energy, but whatever Toby did in sending the beam back to me, it was stronger and it felt like I was taking a punch. Not as bad as Toby had been punching me, granted, but it still took a toll on my body.

At least the shield was holding up – Toby started attacking it, but I was able to hold it up, at least for a little while. While he was attacking, I took the opportunity to talk to him.

"Toby, why are you doing this? What happened to you?"

"I'm sorry Travis, I really am." He slammed against the shield. "But I can't help it! I was forced into this suit and then they put a chip into my arm that hurts me whenever I don't attack you." He slammed again. "I wish I could stop, but if I do they could kill me."

"Who? Who's doing this to you?" I asked, but I was already sure I knew the answer.

"Pariah Dark and Dan Phantom." He took a different approach and started shooting at the shield with a gun stored in the left sleeve of the suit. "I was so stupid … they found me and told me all these things about how they could help me and be my friend, but they just wanted to use me! They started to turn me against you, and now I regret it."

My shield was weakening and I was getting exhausted.

"I can help you, Toby. Maybe I can phase through your arm and get the chip or something. We have to stop it right now, because there's something much bigger going on than you and me. Please, there's got to be something."

"I'm sorry, I really wish there was something that we could do, but the suit's ghost-proof. They've thought of _everything_." With that, he kicked one final time at my shield, weakening me enough so I could no longer hold it up.

"I really am sorry." Toby repeated quietly while he aimed a charging cannon right in the center of my forehead. I was too weak to do anything, but close my eyes and hope that my family could fight on their own …

"_Time out._" Suddenly something cold, hard, and heavy was hanging around my neck. I looked back up at Toby … who was not moving. Not even blinking. In fact, nothing was moving, not any of the smaller floating islands or doors that usually moved at least a little bit, nothing.

I looked down at the thing around my neck, curious as to what it was. It was a medallion with the letters _CW_ on it, which meant …

"Hello, Travis." I turned around quickly and saw Clockwork floating behind me. It was so _weird_ seeing him change from a child to an adult to a very old person all within a matter of a minute. There had been an animation of it on his file, but to see it happen in person was extremely unnerving.

"Clockwork … wha … who …" I searched for the right words but couldn't find them for a few moments. He looked at me, already knowing the questions I was trying to ask but allowing me to stumble over my words clumsily. Finally I found _a_ question to ask …

"Why the hell didn't you come sooner? He was killing me and you wait until actual gunpoint to save me?"

"I am the master of time, not a hero. That's your job, which you can't do very well if you're dead, can you?"

"Yeah, well, it's easier if I'm also in one piece, which would be a stretch to say is true at the moment."

"You'll get better."

"How do you know?"

Clockwork gave me a pointed look. Not only was I regressing into bitterness a little bit due to the extreme pain and fatigue from my fight with Toby, but he knew the future anyway, so he was actually _telling_ me that I would, in fact, get better.

I sighed and rolled my eyes. "Sorry. I guess. It's just that …"

"You're bitter that your friend was manipulated into attacking you by two evil ghosts, one which should have been under my care. I know."

"Well, yeah, and …"

"They're planning on attacking the human world any moment now and you have no idea how to stop them. _I know_."

I opened my mouth again to continue, but the look on Clockwork's face stopped me, telling me that he already knew everything. I clenched my jaw. Even if I was in a good mood I doubted that I would like this guy.

"So are you going to tell me, oh all-knowing Clockwork, what I've missed?"

He nodded. "I can do better than that, even. Come."

He waved his staff around in the air and suddenly we were in what I assumed was his lair. I seriously doubted any sane person or ghost would have that many clocks everywhere. I heard a gasp to my left – Toby wasn't frozen anymore. He was saying quietly but in a panicked voice, "No, no … Travis, go away, I don't want to hurt you any more, go away before the pain begins, go away before I have to hurt you again, I'll have to, otherwise they're going to hurt me, please …"

Clockwork cleared his throat. Toby jumped in surprise and turned quickly to face the ghost. Clockwork drew in a deep breath and said, "You'll be fine here. My lair exists outside of any specific time period, so the only way Dark and Phantom can control the suit is to actually enter my lair … which will not be happening."

Toby breathed out slowly, relived. He turned back to me and said, "Travis, I'm so sorry, it's just that … everything … there's so much …"

I nodded and said, "I know. There's a lot that we have to tell each other, but for now you look exhausted. Clockwork, is there a place he can go to get some sleep?" Clockwork nodded and pointed to a doorway on the other side of the room. I helped Toby over to the door and made sure he was okay as he collapsed onto a pile of cushions.

I walked back over to Clockwork, who was now floating in front of a big … viewing glass or portal or … I couldn't think of an appropriate word to describe it. He gave me a sidelong glance and said, "Your friend's been through a lot. Look."

I watched on the screen, seeing Toby on patrol. It was during the day and he was by himself, but that didn't mean anything – it could have been any given day. Then I noticed a bright green figure walk up to him – Cujo. I was confused.

"Clockwork, this was a long time ago … like …"

"Three months, one week, two days, three hours and twenty-seven minutes ago. I know."

I was silent for the next bit of what happened to Toby. When Cujo dragged him into the ghost zone he went almost straight for the castle, though I doubt that it was on purpose. Knowing Cujo, he was probably just happy to have what he thought was someone to play fetch with. Once he got to the doors of the castle, however, something instinctive stopped him. He dropped Toby and ran away whimpering. Toby was relatively unscathed, albeit a little shaken up, and went into the castle. His adventure with the trap walls was exactly like mine and Amberly's, though he was able to figure out on his own that he could step through solid objects.

Once he was on the other side, he was greeted by Dan Phantom. He immediately grabbed a thermos in one hand and a weapon in the other, but Phantom just laughed and innocently put his hands up. The gesture caught Toby off guard and he asked Phantom what he was doing. Phantom led him through this bull story about how he was a good ghost and how he was friends to both humans and ghosts alike. He managed to coax Toby to put his weapons away, and then said, "You know, Toby, I've seen you in the human world and what you're doing with your friend Travis to defend your town. I have to say, your talents are quite impressive – even more impressive than your friends'. He just seems to be holding his own because he has all those ghost powers. You'd be even better than he is if you had ghost powers, wouldn't you?"

"Oh, pu-leeze. Like anyone would fall for _that_." I rolled my eyes and scoffed. "Toby knows how much I hated being half-dead."

"Did he?" Clockwork asked. "You really didn't listen to your friend much, did you?"

"What do you mean?" I racked my brain as hard as I could, but I couldn't think of anything that Toby had ever said that had implied that he was _jealous_ or anything. Or … was there? I thought about it some more. That day - both before and after Toby was captured – he did say some things I thought were rather … _off_.

I kept watching what had happened between my best friend and my enemy. Toby weakly nodded and said, "You know, Travis doesn't realize just how lucky he is. He can do all of this cool stuff and he's still messing up once in a while. Like the other day, he accidentally turned intangible and fell right through the floor into the basement. If I had those kinds of powers, I would have started practice on them right away so I could have complete control over them."

"See, now THAT'S the kind of attitude that we need our heroes to have around here. You know what? I bet I can help. I know someone who's had a lot of experience with technology, and I bet he can get together the resources to make a … oh, I don't know … _suit_ of some sort that can let you have that kind of power. What do you say?" I had to admit, for looking so scary Dan was manipulative enough to even get me to look past that blue skin for a moment.

Toby thought about it for a moment, obviously having second thoughts about trusting a ghost, but he agreed. "So … who's this ghost?"

"Before you meet him, I have to warn you … you probably won't like who it is at first, but I can assure you that he has changed for the better. And even if he hasn't and, oh, I don't know, has ulterior motives for becoming our ally, I'm keeping a close eye on him."

My friend nodded and shrugged. "Well, you seem pretty cool, so … I guess a friend of yours is a friend of mine."

Dan chuckled a very evil chuckle and put his hand on Toby's shoulder. "Follow me, then."

Dan led Toby into another room to meet – surprise, surprise – Pariah Dark. At first Toby reacted violently, knowing exactly who it was and the threat that Dark was, but Dan reminded him of what he told him, which calmed him down a little. They all talked a little bit about this suit that the two would get for Toby, and then Dan made Toby promise that he wouldn't tell anybody, wouldn't even _hint_ at the meeting they had. A loud noise was heard and Dan told Toby that it was probably me and Amberly triggering the trap walls, and encouraged him to come meet us. Just as Toby was walking out the door, Dan informed my friend that he would keep in touch.

The next few things Clockwork had me watch was different letters being sent to Toby, a couple of face-to-face meetings, and finally him running away to the ghost zone on the Monday after we went to Vlad's mansion.

All of the sudden a whole lot of things mad sense – Toby's strange behavior, the subtle hints dropped in the second and third letters the villains sent to me, how they knew so much.

I rubbed my eyes, tired both physically from the fight and now mentally from having to take in so much information.

"So Toby got into the suit and didn't realize until it was too late that they were using him to destroy me. Talk about psychological warfare. He's going to have to go to therapy for _months_."

"Don't worry, he'll only be going for a couple of weeks." Clockwork offered in his authoritative, 'I know everything that will happen way.' However, I noticed that he hesitated at the end just a little, as if he was going to say something else. I arched my eyebrow, prompting him to continue.

He did – "Assuming, of course, that there will _be_ a place to go to therapy."

I was confused. "I thought you know everything."

"Yes and no. I know everything that will but also _could_ happen. There are multiple futures for you and your friends and the entire world at this point, depending on the actions taken by you and your friends and allies."

"Can't you just … I dunno, change _something_ to make everything turn out okay? Alter something in the past? Make it so that the Fright Night never got the key, or that a certain _someone_ couldn't get out of a certain thermos?" I was starting to raise my voice in frustration at this point.

"I am the master of time, yes, but it is not up to me on how humans and ghosts alike decide to go about their destiny. I cannot force people to make the right decision, nor do I wish to constantly take people to go back and fix their mistakes – with choices come consequences, good or bad, and they are not mine to deal with."

"Everything you do you choose to do …" I said quietly to myself, finding myself quoting my teacher again. Every time that phrase came back to haunt me it took on a different meaning.

"Exactly. Now, you have a big battle in front of you. I suggest that you rest before you face it. Though I cannot play the good Samaritan and do a lot for you, I can offer you a moment's rest while you can still take it." Even though Clockwork was being uncharacteristically nice he still had a very grave look on his face. He knew more than anyone about the battle that was to come, and he knew all of the possible outcomes. I hated to think about it, but apparently enough of them were bad enough that Clockwork was actually acting like a _friend_ to me … that was a bad sign.

I don't remember where I went to sleep, or if I even made it to a decent place to crash, but the next thing I knew I was slowly waking up with a terrible headache.

"What … what happened?" I managed to croak out.

"Dude … after your fight with Toby and Clockwork catching you up on everything you pretty much _crashed_. You've been out for four days."

I shot straight up. "_Four days?!"_

The figure that greeted me as I woke up laughed. "Nah, just messing with you. It's only been a few hours, but dang … I can see why Tucker thought that was so funny. Your reaction … that was just too good to pass up."

I stared at the person standing in front of me.

And my mind blew up.

**Woo-****hoo****! The moment that everyone's been waiting for! **

**Thanks so much to everyone who reviewed – they're what ****keeps**** me going! I'm sorry to have to say, though, that I haven't even started on the next chapter, so I have no idea when I'****ll be able to get it up, especially with several midterms going on this week. FEAR NOT! I know exactly what I am going to write, I just need to find the time to write it. **

**And so, with that, I bid you goodbye (until the next chapter)!**


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